Food

Food Information

Vegetables

Leafy Greens

BEETGREENS

Beet greens are the tops of young garden beets. Occasionally when you purchase a bunch of young, fresh, locally grown beets, the greens will be fresh and tender enough to use as a cooked vegetable.

Young, fresh beet tops with tiny beets attached arrive in the market early in the spring, brought in by farmers who have thinned out their beet crop. The younger the beat green the more succulent and less bitter to taste. If the tops are fresh and crisp, they are a real taste treat. Hothouse beet tops, grown in greenhouses, used to be available during the winter months, but of late they seem to have disappeared from the marketplace.

If you have a garden, pull some beets while the bulbs are not much bigger than marbles. You will find that these greens won't break down when you cook them and that they have a flavor, color, and texture superior to spinach.

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