The main ingredient for this delicious pasta sauce is beetroot! The earthy deep flavors of beetroot work super well with pasta, especially when topped with fresh parmesan, basil and roasted hazelnuts!
A while back, while browsing through Facebook, I saw a short video of a private chef in the Hamptons and it showed all the things she cooks for her client in one day or one week. One of the dishes that she showed briefly was a beetroot pasta sauce. I was super intrigued and it inspired me to try making a beetroot pasta sauce myself!
I’ve always been a big fan of beetroot. Here in Germany you can buy it raw, pre-cooked or pickled as a salad. When I was growing up, we always seemed to have the pickled salad kind in jars in our basement and it still holds a special place in my heart. But over the last ten years or so, I started using raw beetroot in juices or roasting them. I love using fresh beetroot but let’s be honest, the time it takes for them to cook is something I don’t always have!
So I often turn to pre-cooked beetroot. They’re unseasoned and ready to use for salad, soups, roasting or – as in this case – for a sauce! It’s such a delicious sauce and if you love the earthy deep flavors of beetroot, you will love it as much as I do. It works wonderfully with tagliatelle but you could of course use any kind of pasta shape you like. It’s just that my favorite are the kinds of pasta that you can twirl on a fork – spaghetti, tagliatelle and such.
The sauce is actually super simple to make (another advantage of using pre-cooked beetroot)! I fried garlic briefly, then added the cubed beetroot together with some dried oregano and salt. After a while, I added some water to soften them up a bit more. ThenI blended the beetroot with some milk and pasta water and that’s it! Delicious but fast and easy to make – what’s not to love, right?
For textural reasons, I not only topped the pasta with freshly grated parmesan (can’t beat that really!) and fresh basil but also with roasted hazelnuts. I love different textures in my food and I LOVE roasted hazelnuts so much! I always have a jar of roasted hazelnuts in my pantry because it makes so much sense to roast them in a big batch as opposed to only when you need them.
Will you make this pasta dish soon? Or how about my Oma Val’s Tuna Pasta Casserole?
Beetroot Pasta With Roasted Hazelnuts
Description
The main ingredient for this delicious pasta sauce is beetroot! The earthy deep flavors of beetroot work super well with pasta, especially when topped with fresh parmesan, basil and roasted hazelnuts!
Ingredients
Instructions
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Heat up olive oil in a pan.
Peel and chop garlic cloves.
Drain and cube the beetroot.
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Fry chopped garlic in the pan for one minute, then add the cubed beetroot, dried oregano and salt and fry for another ten minutes.
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Add 1/3 cup of water and cook for ten more minutes. Add to a blender together with the milk and pasta water (see next step).
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Cook tagliatelle or other pasta in salted water according to the cooking instructions. Drain well but keep 1/4 cup of pasta water (potentially keep more just in case).
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Divide the pasta among three plates. Top with the beetroot sauce, freshly grated parmesan and chopped roasted hazelnuts. Enjoy!
Note
If you don't have roasted hazelnuts at hand (I make them on a regular basis), I suggest you roast a package of hazelnuts at 180°C for 12 minutes. After roasting (but when they're still hot), pour them onto a kitchen towel. Fold the towel and rub the hazelnuts together - that removes their skins easily.
