Beetroot Poriyal

Poriyal recipes, Side dish for rice, South Indian Lunch recipes, Weight loss recipes, Women's Health Recipes

It is really challenging to prepare piquant poriyal using mildly sweet earthy-flavored beetroots. I tried various beetroot poriyal recipes by adding different ingredients to mask the sweet flavor and make it more palatable. Incidentally, I found that we can add a burst of flavor by sauteing beetroot along with garlic in coconut oil and spicing it up by adding pepper. I have also added nicely fluffed up yellow lentils along with deep red beetroot chunks for adding beautiful color and delicious texture.

bpr7 Beetroot Poriyal
Piquant beetroot poriyal

Weight watchers may take this delicious beetroot poriyal as a mid-morning salad. We can also serve this for lunch with rice and sambar, rasam, or any kuzhambu except mor-kuzhambu.

bpr5 Beetroot Poriyal
Lunch with sambar, rasam, avial & beetroot poriyal

Beetroot health benefits:

Although beetroot has innumerable health benefits, it is particularly beneficial to pregnant women for its rich sources of iron & folate. I have compared below the nutrients of beetroot with dates being one of the rich sources of iron & broccoli as a good source of folate:

beetroot Beetroot Poriyal
Beetroot benefits for women

Beetroot poriyal recipe:

bpr8 Beetroot Poriyal


Time taken: 30 min.
Yields: 1½ cups (300 ml)

Ingredients:

  1. Beetroot – 2 Nos.
  2. Greengram (paasi paruppu) – 1/8 cup
  3. Salt – Â½ tsp

For tempering:

  1. Coconut oil – 1 tbsp
  2. Mustard seeds – Â¼ tsp
  3. Garlic pods – 15 Nos.

For spice mix:

  1. Coconut pieces – 5 Nos. (each 1″)
  2. Peppercorns – Â½ tsp
  3. Cumin seeds – ½ tsp (optional)
bpr4 Beetroot Poriyal
Ingredients

Mise en place:

  • Cook lentils uncovered until soft and firm but not mushy for about 10 min.
  • Crush garlic pods using pestle and keep aside.
  • Grind coconut & pepper coarsely without adding water.
bpr2 Beetroot Poriyal
  • Wash beetroots, peel their skins and dice them as shown below.
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Diced beets

How to make beetroot poriyal:

  • Heat a pressure cooker with coconut oil in medium flame.
  • Add mustard seeds into the cooker.
  • When they begin to crackle, add crushed garlic and saute for few seconds.
  • Add diced beetroot, salt & water (1 tbsp) and then close the pressure cooker.
  • Now reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 min.
  • Add about one-half of cooked lentils & coconut-pepper mixture immediately after the pressure is released.
  • Mix together and close the cooker for 2-3 minutes to prevent the heat escape. (No need to turn on the heat.)
  • Garnish with remaining lentils & grated coconut before serving.
bpr3 Beetroot Poriyal
Beetroot poriyal recipe

Tips & Tweaks:

  • If we pressure cook lentils along with beetroot then we get the red tinged dal, so I have cooked them separately.
  • Crushed garlic is more flavorful than finely chopped garlic, so I don’t prefer to chop them.
  • You may use red chillies along with garlic and garnish with coconut (without pepper) as below:
bpr-v Beetroot Poriyal
Beetroot poriyal using red chillies
  • I prefer to use coconut oil & coconut meat in here as the beetroot & coconut pair works wonder.
mutakose-poriyal Beetroot Poriyal
Muttaikose poriyal using pepper
  • We can follow the same poriyal recipe using other vegetables that are mildly sweet like carrot, kothavarangai (cluster beans), vaazhakai (raw banana), avarakkai (broad beans), cabbage, chenai kizhangu (elephant’s foot yam), etc.
IMG_5514 Beetroot Poriyal
Avarakkai poriyal

80 comments on “Beetroot Poriyal”Add yours →

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    1. Yes, I do find the combo of beetroots, pepper & garlic more delicious. Thank you!

    1. Yes, I do remember that you wanted to check my version too, and I guess you would like it. 🙂 Thank you.

  10. Thank you for your informative article, I have been doing research on this subject, and for three days I keep entering sites that are supposed to have what I am searching for, only to be discouraged with the lack of what I needed. Thank you again.

    1. Oh, please let me know how it turned out for you. Thanks a ton for all your likes. 🙂

  29. I love beetroot. But it hasn’t always been that way. I remember when at the age of 7 or 8, the veg. man told me he had a present for me. He hid his hands behind his back. The excitement was great. And then he gave me – 2 uncooked beetroots! What a let down.

    1. Yes, most of us had some vegetable phobia during childhood. Although those veggies still taste the same, our palates have developed over the period and also we learned to appreciate the goodness of such vegetables.
      I’m glad this post evokes your childhood memory with beetroots. Thank you so much.

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