Creamy Polenta Recipe with Roasted Beets
Top creamy polenta with lemony raw & roasted beets, and you have a healthy, comforting, delicious dinner. Great for date nights!
vegetarian / dinner
We celebrated Valentine’s day early this year with this creamy polenta recipe. We actually celebrate most holidays early around here… at least food-wise. Christmas cookies in October, Thanksgiving food in late August and so on.
I’m not sure what we’re doing for “real” Valentine’s yet – but once I got this recipe just right and the pictures were done, Jack and I sat down to a romantic (albeit reheated) meal for two. The only caveat – Jack doesn’t like beets. He’s not a picky eater but beets are on his short list of foods he usually won’t touch. I originally tried this recipe with other roasted vegetables but the juicy sweetness of the beets went SO well with the creamy polenta. The little heart-like-shaped red beets combined with the pink and white striped Chioggia beets just needed to be here. Also, since I love beets and you love beets (right?), he was outnumbered this time.
Our dinner conversation went like this:
Me: “So I know you don’t prefer beets, but don’t you think they work really well in this case – just a few of them – with the other vegetables and creamy polenta and this lemony dijon dressing kind of covers them up right? I mean, I know how much you love mustard.
Him: “They’re still beets.”
Me: “Remember that one time when I made beets and told you they were turnips and you ate them and you liked them?”
Him: “Yes, but this time I know they are beets and I can’t un-think that”
Me: “But if you didn’t watch me make this and you closed your eyes and ate this, you would probably be ok with this whole combination right? You would probably not even notice the beets.
Him: (as he’s licking his plate clean, btw.) “Ok… of all the way that I’ve had beets, this makes them taste the least beet-y. Plus this polenta is [flipping] awesome.”
Creamy Polenta
So I’ll leave it up to you whether you love or hate beets but let’s talk about the polenta. It’s creamy, made with almond milk instead of plain water or cream. I use olive oil instead of butter which gives it a nice rich flavor.
This recipe is not difficult to make, especially if you start your beets and chickpeas roasting in advance.
The rest of the dish is comprised of roasted red onions and roasted chickpeas, sautéed spinach, and thinly sliced, lightly marinated Chioggia beets… I love the contrasting flavors, textures (and colors) of the raw and roasted beets together.
This polenta recipe serves 2 but can be easily doubled to serve 4.
5.0 from 3 reviews
Creamy Polenta Recipe with Roasted Beets
PrintPrep time 30 minsCook time 60 minsTotal time 1 hour 30 mins This polenta recipe with roasted beets is one of our favorite date-night meals!Author: Jeanine DonofrioRecipe type: main dishServes: 2IngredientsPolenta:
- 2 cups almond milk
- 1 cup water, more as needed
- ½ cup stone ground polenta corn grits (not instant)
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, more to taste
- Sea salt
Veggies
- ½ small red onion, sliced into wedges
- ½ Chioggia beet, sliced paper thin, optional
- 4 cups fresh spinach
- 1 small garlic clove, minced
- Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup Roasted Chickpeas
- 6 to 8 small Roasted Beets, using this roasting method
- 2 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Extra-virgin olive oil
Lemon Dijon Dressing:
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 small clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Make the polenta: In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the almond milk, water and a ½ teaspoon salt to a gentle boil. Add the polenta and whisk to combine. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring every 5 to 10 minutes. Be careful that the mixture does not start to bubble. This will scorch the polenta and leave a bitter taste. Continue stirring for about 45 minutes or until the polenta has thickened but is still soft and creamy. Stir in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and more salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and set aside. If it thickens before serving, stir in more water or almond milk to reach your desired consistency.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss the onion wedges with a drizzle of olive oil and generous pinches of salt pepper. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes or until soft.
- Make the Lemon Dijon Dressing: In a small shallow bowl, whisk together the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and Dijon mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Place the raw Chioggia beet slices in the dressing and let them marinate until you’re ready to plate.
- In a medium skillet, heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the spinach and a pinch of salt and pepper and toss. When the spinach starts to wilt, reduce the heat and add the garlic and a squeeze of lemon. Toss and remove from heat.
- Assemble plates with a scoop of polenta, the sautéed spinach, roasted onions, roasted chickpeas, roasted beets, raw beets and feta cheese. Drizzle the remaining Lemon Dijon dressing over the vegetables. Season to taste with more salt and pepper.
3.4.3177
This post is sponsored by Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Almondmilk.
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- Courtney Flickwir
08.29.2018I made this and it was so good!! Definitely adding to my rotation. I added toasted hazelnuts and pine nuts and it brought such a nice flavor.
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- Angela
05.28.2018I made this for company last night. I doubled it to serve all four of us. It was amazing. I woke up thinking about it! I bought beets that are apparently ginormous so I have a ton of left over roasted beets … so keep that in mind when buying beets since they can be expensive. I also did some golden and some red. So so yum.
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- Jeanine Donofrio
05.29.2018Hi Angela, I’m so glad you loved it 🙂
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- Jeanine Donofrio
- Sabrina from newkitchenlife.com
02.15.2017wow, I actually do love beets, have also defaulted to the “standard” red beets, haven’t used Chioggia before, nice excuse, also interesting about the almond milk ingredient in the polenta, love polenta but never made with almond milk, so a double on the “new info” meter, thank you for this
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- Susan from simplysundaysfoodblog.com
02.14.2017This looks SO good! My family likes beets any way I make them.. they would LOVE them over creamy polenta. Great pics too!!
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- Leah
02.12.2017Made this for lunch today and it was sooooooo good. I added 3 times the dijon in the dressing for my specific taste and it was just delicious. Thanks for sharing the best vegetarian foods ever!
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- Jeanine Donofrio
02.17.2017Hi Leah – I’m so glad you liked it, yay! I love dijon too 🙂
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- Jeanine Donofrio
- Liz (Good Things) from bizzylizzysgoodthings.com
02.12.2017Loving the look and sound of this dish, particularly the use of the almond milk instead of cream. Many thanks.
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- Stef from forkandveg.com
02.11.2017This recipe looks amazing! I will definitely be testing out this recipe!
Your photos are truly stunning too! Keep up the great work!
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- Rebecca
02.11.2017I made this tonight! Skipped the chioggia beets altogether as they’re pretty hard to get hold of here in Brisbane, and the only beetroot I had on hand were pretty soft. They (predictably) turned out pretty average, but the polenta, chickpeas and onion were absolutely amazing! And the spinach, but spinach is always a winner. 😉 I definitely want to remake it sometime with fresh beets. Thanks for the recipe! =)
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- Jeanine Donofrio
02.11.2017I’m so glad you liked it! I hope you find some good beets soon 🙂
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- Jeanine Donofrio
- Rachael from theteacozykitchen.blogspot.co.uk
02.07.2017This sounds truly delicious!
Rachael xx.
theteacozykitchen.blogspot.co.ukReply ↓
- Maggie from stayintheglow.com
02.07.2017YUM! I’ve never used chioggia beets before. I’m guessing you can use a mandolin to slice a regular beet thin enough to marinate if we can’t find chioggia?
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- Jeanine Donofrio
02.07.2017yes – you can use any kind of beet for the whole recipe – red, yellow, pink, I just loved these colors for valentines day!
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- Jeanine Donofrio
- Kat Downs from crunchykat.com
02.06.2017PS – I am making this tonight!
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- Kat Downs from Www.crunchykat.com
02.06.2017Ha! Your conversation about beets is the EXACT conversation I have with my husband about squash and sweet potatoes. 🙂
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- Jeanine Donofrio
02.07.2017Ha, that’s good to know that we’re not only ones – although I’d be so sad if Jack didn’t like sweet potatoes!
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- Jeanine Donofrio
- McKel Hill from nutritionstripped.com
02.06.2017Beets + polenta are such an amazing combo! Can’t wait to try this one!
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- Kevin | economicalchef.com from economicalchef.com
02.06.2017Thanks for the recipe! My wife is always using with almond milk, good to know that you can cook with it as well. Excited to give this one a try.
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- Emily
02.06.2017I would love to make this – and serve it – on the same plates you did. Would appreciate the link to purchase. Thanks in advance!
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- Jeanine Donofrio
02.07.2017Hi Emily, I got them in person here: https://magnoliamarket.com/ I don’t see them sold online but you can maybe email them and ask?
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- Jeanine Donofrio
