Beetroot spinach bread braid is a delicious, healthy, showstopper of beetroot with garlic dough and spinach with lemon dough, braided together. For the holiday table or a fabulous summertime addition to some great salads!
Beetroot Spinach Bread
Can we just talk about their striking colors together for a moment? I was first inspired by the bright green and crimson, if not magenta, colors of the beet greens.
I’ll bet you throw those beet greens away? Please don’t!
Sauté them in a little olive oil, garlic and a splash of lemon, just as you might with kale, and serve them as an insanely healthy side.
Or, drop them into soup, just don’t throw them away.
Once I was focused on the colors in the leaf, I knew I had to replicate those colors in a gorgeous loaf of bread.
Spinach and Beetroot For Color and Nutrition
This is a bread I purposely grow the vegetables for in the summer months.
I love knowing that I can grow my own nutritional beets and spinach, if only in small deck pots.
However, I’m sure since it’s December, I was also inspired by the colors of the holiday season too.
Spinach Bread In Many Forms
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, no one ate spinach salad. We just never ate spinach raw. How dumb was that!
Fortunately for me, having grown up in a Mediterranean influenced home, the way we cooked spinach was so delicious.
A light sauté in a pan of olive oil, lemon, caramelized onions, oregano and salt.
Mediterranean style cooking of vegetables seemed to brighten the flavors of vegetables rather than drown them in butter or boil them completely to flavorless mush.
(I’m allowed to say that because my hubby is British and said that’s how they did it, yuk!)
Greeks and Arabs prepare their spinach in the Mediterranean way and then wrap it in some type of pastry, phyllo or homemade pastry dough.
I’ll bet little kids growing up in that culture never complained about eating their spinach! So good!
Beetroots and Beet Greens
While I only just discovered a few years ago, while living in Brazil, that beetroot juice is pressed from the beets and drank; raw.
Also, later in life, I discovered that beet roots, also known as sugar beets, are just that; sweet. One of my favorite cakes is made from sugar beets.
On a weekday basis, though, I like to enjoy beets made savory; roasted or boiled then tossed in olive oil and garlic. I also like the beet greens this way too.
Beetroot Spinach Bread Braid
What? Are you kidding? Oh My Goodness you don’t know what you’re missing.
Not only is the color blend pretty enough to wear, but the flavors enhanced by caramelized onions, garlic, lemon and salt never tasted better in a bread.
Once the spinach was wilted and onions caramelized, the spinach and yeast dough went together easy.
Having boiled the beets earlier, they had cooled and were ready to puree with a little garlic and olive oil and make that into a yeast dough.
Both doughs rose in about an hour. I expected longer but with an egg in each dough, the rise time was really quick.
Two Bread Doughs Braided Together Into One
The beet dough alone would have been fabulous, as would have been the spinach dough.
Both would have baked to perfection and be fabulous served with anything from a full coarse dinner to a tapas spread.
Seeing how it is December, as I am making my first bread such as this, I knew I had to braid the two together to look like a wreath. So pretty.
Before I cut into the bread, they looked like a pinwheel, but once I cut the bread open, the colors were even lighter and brighter on the inside and looked like a quilt.
Planting Beetroot and Spinach For Bread Braids
When the dead of winter has set in, that’s the perfect time to put a few beetroot seeds and spinach seeds in some small pots.
Definitely find a little window sill in your home that will give a little sunshine love to the potted seeds.
Once spring arrives, you’ll be ready to play in the dirt and enjoy a Garden To Table lifestyle all summer long!
Beetroot Spinach Bread Braid Is The Ultimate Healthy Bread
Delight yourself and make this bread for holiday season.
But by all means save this recipe for grilling season, salad season or just make it to take on a picnic along with cheese, fruit and some sips.
This week, though, I am sitting fireside, next to my decorated Christmas tree and enjoying every bite with fabulous cheese and a glass of red.
Happy Healthy Holiday Season To YOU!
One Last Word On Beetroot and Spinach
If you love either of these powerfully healthy veggies and would like to try some other recipes using them, wow do I have some great ones!
- Spinach and Walnut Pesto – perfect as a dip, a spread on sandwiches or fabulous on Spinach Pesto Pizza!
- Spanakopita – of course! Homegrown spinach wrapped inside of buttery, crisp phyllo dough.
- Beetroot Ketchup – What? Absolutely better on anything you’d put tomato ketchup on!
- Beetroot Ice Cream – yes, yes and a whole lotta yeses!
- Beet and Endive Salad with Fig Dressing – a beautiful marriage of flavors in a small-bite salad, just like I made in the finale on The Great American Recipe show on PBS!
Ingredients Needed
- Beets
- Eggs
- Garlic
- Yeast
- Sugar
- Salt
- Flour
- Olive oil
- Spinach
- Onion
- Lemon
Equipment Needed
- Mixing bowls
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Food processor
- Baking sheet pan, or Pie dish
- Basting brush
- Saute pan
- Sauce pan
- Cutting board
- Vegetable peeler
- Chopping knife
- Stovetop or burner
- Oven
Beetroot Spinach Bread Braid
Equipment
- 2 Large mixing bowls
- 1 Baking sheet pan
Ingredients
- Beet Dough
- 1 cup Cooked beets 1 medium or 3 little
- 1 Egg
- 1 Garlic clove crushed
- 2 tsp Yeast
- 2 tsp Sugar
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 3-4 cups Flour more for dusting
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- Spinach Dough
- 1 lb Spinach
- 1 Onion small
- 1/2 Lemon juiced
- 3 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 Egg
- 2 tsp Yeast
- 2 tsp Sugar
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 3-4 cups Flour more for dusting
- 1 Egg for egg wash 1 egg with 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- Beets
- Peel and chop the beets into small cubes. Just barely cover with water and simmer until soft. Cool.
- In a food processor, puree the strained beets (saving the beet water), with crushed garlic clove and the egg. Measure out this mixture in a measuring cup, to equal 1 1/2 cups of liquid. If not enough, add a little of the reserved beet cooking water to complete the measurements.
- In a mixing bowl, place the yeast, sugar and beet mixture. Add salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Blend.
- Slowly fold in the flour until the dough comes together and no longer feels sticky. No heavy kneading needed, just press and fold flour into the dough until it’s not sticky.
- Clean the bowl, brush with 1 tbsp olive oil, return the beet dough to the oiled bowl, cover and let rise about an hour.
- Spinach
- In a sauté pan, place 2 tbsp of olive oil, finely chopped onion, spinach and lemon juice from half a lemon. Cover and let simmer until onions are soft and spinach is wilted. Cool.
- Place this mixture (liquid and all), in a food processor, puree with salt and the egg. Measure the mixture to obtain 1 1/2 cups of liquid. If more is needed, simply drizzle in enough water to obtain measurement.
- In a mixing bowl, place the yeast, sugar and spinach mixture.
- Slowly fold in the flour until the dough comes together and no longer feels sticky.
- Clean the bowl, brush with 1 tbsp olive oil, return the spinach dough to the oiled bowl, cover and let rise about an hour.
- Assemble and Bake
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Brush a very little amount of olive oil on the pan or plates for baking.
- When both doughs have risen, punch the dough down, roll out into a long log on a floured surface. Cut each rolled out log into 4 pieces. Stretch these pieces to about a foot long each.
- Lay one spinach log and one beet log side by side and twist them together. Bring the twisted log into a circle, or leave in a long twisted loaf. Place on baking sheet, loaf pan or dish. Brush with egg wash (final egg whisked with tablespoon of water).
- Bake until golden crust on top, about 25-30 minutes.
Video
Notes
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.