How to Make Beet Purée
Learn how to make this beet purée recipe and use it to add color and flavor to your favorite veggie burgers and lentil loaf recipes. You can also use pureed beets as food coloring for things like cookies.
Why in the world would you ever want to make beetroot puree? It’s a great question. I’m so glad you asked.
Sometimes when I’m making veggie burgers or lentil loaves, I don’t want it to be so…brown. I want it to have a little more color. Adding some Beet Puree is a perfect way to do that.
Truth be told, I used to hate beets. It’s another one of those foods that grew on me as I grew up. Now I love them. And it’s a good thing because beets are healthy!
What Makes This Recipe Shine?
- Using fresh beets makes this recipe easy and affordable to make
- Adding just enough water to make the puree consistency spreadable is the trick to making this recipe the best
Key Ingredients
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe, including substitution ideas:
- Beets — You’ll need one regular-sized beet. To make golden beet puree, simply substitute a golden beet.
- Water — If your water has flavor, I recommend using filtered water.
How to Make Beet Purée
- Rub and wash the beet. Chop into large chunks and add to a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds.
- Add a half cup of water and pulse. Remove the lid and push ingredients down from the side. Then pulse again until smooth.
- Store in a lidded container. If you’re not going to be using it all right away, store in the freezer.
This is a raw beet puree, but you can make roasted beet puree by roasting the beets first. Do this by cutting the beets into 1-inch cubes, then placing them on a baking sheet and bake for around 30 minutes in an oven heated to 375°F. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool before pureeing.
Beet Stains
Making this puree, basically, a mashed beetroot recipe is easy. The hardest part is scrubbing the beet.
The hardest part of this beet sauce recipe is cutting the beet into chunks, and not because a beet is particularly hard to chop. No, the real trouble comes because a beet is messy to chop because of its staining properties. Here’s how to deal with it:
- Tools — Use a cutting board you can wash.
- Hands — If you get beet juice on your hands, it will stain them. However, the stain surprisingly doesn’t last very long. It’s usually gone in minutes.
Storage Tips
Store beet puree in a lidded glass container (such as a mason jar) for up to 5 days. I freeze my beet puree and then add it to my veggie burgers or in my lentil loaf recipes to create a more desirable color.
How to use Beet Purée
It’s super easy to make this pureed beetroot recipe, but your next question might be…WHY?
Don’t worry, I get you. I’m not going to ask you to do anything unnecessarily. Here are reasons I love to have this beetroot puree recipe on hand:
- I add pureed beets to my favorite veggie burger recipes, like this Black Bean Burgers recipe.
- It’s perfect in my lentil loaf recipe, like this Holiday Lentil Loaf.
- You can add it to Lentil Sloppy Joe’s to add some color.
- It can even be added to a sugar cookie recipe to add some color, like these vegan sugar cookies? Make them red instead with beets.
- Babies love pureed beets, so this is another way of serving this dish.
A lot of veggie burgers and lentil loaf recipes can end up looking too brown. It’s not very appetizing. And maybe you’re not trying to make your meat substitutes look like “meat”, but if you’re preparing a recipe for someone who is new to vegan foods, it can be comforting for them, to see a little color in the lentil loaf.
Are Beets Healthy?
Beets are in the same family as chard and quinoa. Who knew! You’ll find folate, manganese, potassium, iron and so much more in beets. That’s the thing about plants, they come packed with valuable phytonutrients. Also, beets are a fairly low-calorie way to add extra flavor. One beet contains only 35 calories!
More Purée Recipes
Many recipes, such as soups and even hummus, can be considered pureed. In addition to this beetroot purée recipe, here are some more purée recipes to try:
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How to Make Beet Puree
Ingredients
- 1 Beet
- ½ – 1 cup Water
Instructions
- Rub and wash the beet. Chop into large chunks and add to a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds.
- Add a half cup of water and pulse. Remove the lid and push ingredients down from the side. Then pulse again until smooth.
- Store in a lidded container. If you’re not going to be using it all right away, store in the freezer.
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The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This post was originally published in 2017 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2021.
Hello! Can you please recommend a chocolate cake recipe that calls for this uncooked puree? Every recipe I see seems to call for cooked beet puree. Thanks!
Hi Adrian. I don’t have a recipe for a beet root cake. However, you can probably substitute beet puree for applesauce in my vegan chocolate cake recipe. I haven’t tried this myself, but I know that beet puree can be used as an applesauce substitute. Hope this is helpful!
I used the beet purée in my homemade dog treats for the color and health benefits. Kimmy-Chewz Pet Bakery specializes in all natural pet treats and the Doggos love them! Thanks so very much for this recipe!
Instructions were easy to follow. I roasted the beets (wrapped chunks in tinfoil) and peeled the skin off afterwards.
So glad you liked this recipe, Brooke!
I’m going to swap out food coloring for this beet purée in a recipe for Red Velvet Cake. Thank you for sharing
I think adding beets to a cake is a brilliant idea! In fact, that’s where the red velvet originated from (beets). It makes a very moist cake. So excited for you!
ABOUT ONE CUP OF PUREED BEETS ADDED TO YOUR CHOCOLATE CAKE MAKE THE BEST CHO MOIST CAKE EVER
Did you add the beet purée in addition to all the other ingredients or substitute it for some of the liquid
Hi Linda! I’m not sure I understand your question. To make this beet puree, I used beets and water. Are you referring to a recipe where I’ve used the beet puree?
This looks so yummy and delicious! I’m definitely going to give it a try! Lots of love!
Gulia