About recipe

This makes a great meal on a hot summer day. If you use canned beets, you don’t even need to turn on the oven! Beets provide many nutritional benefits such as disease-fighting antioxidants, cholesterol-lowering fiber, and they can even help lower blood pressure. So beat the heat with these delicious and nutritious beets!

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 1/5 ounce can beets (preferably low sodium) or 1 pound of fresh beets, peeled and diced
• 1 cup water (if using canned beets)
• 2 slices seedless rye bread (about 1 cup) crusts removed, chopped
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/4 cup chopped scallions
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 hothouse cucumber, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill

Preparation

1. If using canned beets, drain the juice from the can into a bowl and add bread cubes to soak for about 5 minutes.
2. If using fresh beets, place the chopped beets in a large pot of boiling salted water and cook uncovered until the beets are tender about 20 minutes. Remove the beets from the bowl with a slotted spoon and set them aside to cool. Reserve 1 1/2 cups cooking water to soak bread cubes as above.
3. Add beets, water, yogurt, lemon juice, scallions, sugar, cucumber, and dill to the bowl with the soaking bread. Stir to combine.
4. Using an immersion blender or a regular blender, blend ingredients until almost smooth.
5. Chill and serve.