I am having a huge love affair with fresh beets lately as reported a couple weeks back. This weekend was no different. We had a family gathering for the hubby’s birthday so I offered to bring a couple salads. The first thing I thought of was beets! So I went to Pinterest and looked up a bunch of salads.. and found one very similar to this but I wanted to add a couple extra items to the drizzle and they were awesome.

I generally boil my beets but if you prefer you can roast them.  I also just happened to have a butternut squash that has been sitting on my counter for the past couple months that was just waiting for this recipe to come along. 🙂 I am just this year beginning to use more fresh herbs in my cooking and am loving the flavours they bring out in the foods.

I am not going to tell you really how much or little basil you should use but I finely chopped up about 4 TBSP for this recipe and it seemed like enough. Adding the dressing to the vegetables when they are cooled with the basil and refrigerating for a few hours to let the flavours mix, makes this salad fabulous. I mixed in the cheese just before we left for the gathering but in the recipe, I would recommend adding it just before serving for both the lovely look of the cheese sprinkled on top and the flavour of it added this way.

I also love really good balsamic vinegars. This one as a balsamic fig that I had in the cupboard but any nice balsamic vinegar will be fine. I also just happened to have half a tangerine on the counter from another salad, so just drizzled a tiny bit of juice into the dressing.  I also am a bit of a pepper freak so used the whole tsp of pepper but if you are a bit sensitive to it, just use the 1/2 tsp.

Beets Butternut and Carrot Salad

Weight Watchers 2 SP per serving
6 Servings 

5 Medium beets
1 small butternut Squash
3 large carrots
1/4 cup feta cheese
Fresh Basil about 4 TBSP

Dressing
1 TBSP Extra Virgin olive oil
1 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar
1 tsp juice from an orange or tangerine
1/2 – 1 tsp pepper

Cook your beets and cube into bite sized pieces.  Peel and cut up your squash, and carrots into bite size pieces as well and roast them in a 375F. oven until tender.

Mix your vegetables together gently with the fresh basil and allow to cool. Mix your dressing ingredients together and add to the cooled vegetables. Cover and refrigerate. Sprinkle the feta cheese over the top just before serving.

Let me know if you try this and how you liked it. 🙂