Beet and Burrata Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette
It’s fabulously fresh with a citrusy vinaigrette. It’s sassy with crunchy broiled grapefruit that brings tartness but sweet with yellow beets to cut the sour. Burrata brings a creaminess to the salad, yet remains light, and pistachios compliment all of it.
It’s truly a beautiful salad. The only drawback in this salad is the individual will need to cut the grapefruit and cheese as they eat it. It does break my salad rule of “an eater shall not have to cut their salad”, but I had a professor who said it’s ok to break the rules, if you know the rule you’re breaking. Make sure you serve it with a steak knife, because it will be too hard to cut through the broiled grapefruit with a butter knife.
If you’re on the fence about beets, please give golden beets a try. They’re sweet and mild without the earthiness of red beets.
If you like plenty of dressing, make 1 ½ batches.
Grapefruit Vinaigrette Ingredients
1 grapefruit (1 Tbl zest, ½ c of juice)
1 Tbl + 2 tsp mayonnaise
1 Tbl honey
1 Tbl coarse ground black pepper
¼ c olive oil
¾ c avocado oil
¼ tsp salt
Grapefruit Vinaigrette Directions
Zest the grapefruit and add 1 Tbl of zest to a 16 ounce jar with a tight fitting lid. Squeeze the grapefruit to get ½ c of juice. If you come up short, you can make up the difference with vinegar.
Add 1 Tbl + 2 tsp mayonnaise, 1 Tbl honey, 1 Tbl fresh ground coarse black pepper, ¼ c olive oil, ¾ c Avocado oil, and ¼ tsp salt to the jar. Close the jar and shake until it’s emulsified. Taste. It should be a tad on the salty side and tart. If you want more sweetness add honey, add grapefruit juice to make it more acidic, or avocado oil to make it smoother.
Notes
You can substitute another neutral flavored oil for the avocado oil. Sunflower or grapeseed oils are great options.
While you can substitute a neutral oil for the olive oil, I do not recommend using olive oil in place of avocado oil because it will overpower the grapefruit flavor.
Beet and Burrata Salad Ingredients
1 ½ lbs of golden beets with no greens
3 grapefruit
1 tsp coarse ground black pepper
2 Tbl sugar
2 quarts of salad greens (arugula, baby kale, and cress are good options)
4 - 4 ounce balls of burrata
¾ c of pistachios
Beet and Burrata Salad Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 1 ½ lb beets in a Pyrex and cover with foil. It’s hard to determine how long it takes because it varies based on the size of the beet. When you start smelling the beets, pierce it with a knife. If it glides through the beet, they’re finished cooking.
Beets are easiest peeled when hot. I like to have 1 beet I’m peeling, 1 on deck (on the cutting board cooling a little), and the rest of the beets I leave in the Pyrex covered with foil. When I start peeling beet #2, I move another one to the deck.
You want the beets just cool enough to touch. Slice off the top and bottom. Stand it upright and slice down, just barely cutting off the skin. Lay it on its side and slice into ¼” rounds. Lay it flat and cut into ¼” strips, turn them 90 degrees and slice to get ¼” cubes.
Remove the peel from 3 grapefruit. Slice off the top and bottom of the fruit and stand it upright. Take a sharp knife and slice downward around the curvature of the fruit. You want to remove the white, but not the flesh.
Slice it into 1” thick rounds. Grease a baking sheet. Lay the grapefruit in a single layer with the smaller side down. Sprinkle the tops with 1 tsp coarse ground black pepper and 2 Tbl sugar.
Broil on the highest rack for about 15 minutes until the sugar is dark golden brown, but not burned. The sugar will bubble before it browns.
To assemble per serving.
Lay 4 c of greens on a plate and drizzle 3-4 Tbl of grapefruit vinaigrette over it. Gently toss the greens until the leaves are well coated. Sprinkle ¾ c of the beets on top of the greens. Put 1 burrata ball in the center of the plate and prop 1-2 grapefruit rounds against the cheese. Sprinkle 3 Tbl of pistachios on top of the beets.
Notes
This salad works best as a main dinner salad. Combine it with a soup to call it a meal. Or you can serve it family style. When you cut burrata, it oozes a curdled cream so you can’t really divide it and make it look pretty for smaller portions. If you insist on small individual salads, swap out the burrata for a fresh ricotta and cut the grapefruit rounds in half before broiling.
The broiled grapefruit is a bit challenging to cut after it’s broiled. If you want, you can cut it into bite sized pieces before broiling and put them on the pan touching so it’s easier to top with black pepper and sugar. I don’t think it’s as pretty when it’s cut in pieces.
