Simple Beet Soup

This beet soup is so easy to make yet very flavorful. It’s made with just a handful of ingredients, has a beautiful deep purple color, and a sweet and slightly sour taste.

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to make this delicious beet soup:

• Beets – use red beets for this soup
• Broth – chicken broth or if you have a good quality beef broth, use half chicken broth and half beef broth. I don’t recommend using vegetable broth – I have tried it and the soup was too plain in flavor. You really need to have a good flavorful base for this soup since it has so few ingredients.
• Flavorings – fresh garlic, dried marjoram, fresh dill (you can also use frozen, but not dried).
• Something sour – I’m using apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. Vinegar adds a sharp sour flavor, while lemon juice adds citrusy notes, both are necessary. You can swap apple cider vinegar fo red wine vinegar. Use only freshly squeezed lemon juice.
• Something sweet – a touch of sugar.

This soup is really delicious, but if you would like to take it to another level, you could add some beet kvass to it. Beet kvass is a liquid made from fermenting beets, it’s easy to make and adds lots of flavor to beet soups. It’s also very healthy, so you could drink it alone for health benefits.

Step by step instructions

STEP 1: Wrap the beets in aluminum foil and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes (45 minutes for small beets, 1 hour for medium, 1 hour 30 mins for large beets) or until they can be easily pierced with a fork.

STEP 2: When the beets are done, unwrap them and set aside until cool enough to handle. Peel the beets, cut them into quarters, then into 1/4-inch (5mm) slices.

STEP 3: Add the beets, chicken broth, garlic clove pressed through a garlic press, and vinegar into a medium pot. Bring to boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.

STEP 4: Take the pot off the heat. Add sugar, lemon juice, marjoram, and dill. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

Serve the soup with a dollop of sour cream and enjoy!

A crunchy baguette would be a good side for this soup.

Storage

You can store this soup for up to 3 days in the fridge. It can also be frozen for up to 6 months.

How to make homemade meat broth

This soup will really benefit from delicious homemade meat broth. Chicken broth is great but I like it most made with chicken and beef broth.

Here’s what you need:

• meat: 2 lbs (900g) chicken pieces (any chicken pieces that are on the bone and with skin, chicken wings are great, you could also use cheap parts of chicken such as chicken carcass, breast bones, neck), 1 lb (450g) beef meat with bone,
• vegetables cut into large chunks (2 carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1 onion, 1 parsley root, 1/2 leek)
• aromatics (3 allspice berries, 3 bay leaves, a couple of pieces dried mushrooms, 15 whole black peppercorns)

How to make it in an Instant Pot: add all the ingredients and 8 cups of water to the instant pot, close the lid, move the valve to the sealing position, pressure cook for 1 hour (it will take 30 minutes to come to the pressure), make a natural release for at least 30 minutes (meaning turn off the pot and do nothing else), make a quick release (move the valve to the venting position), open the pot when the pin drops, strain the broth.

How to make it on the stovetop: add all the ingredients and 10 cups of water into a large pot, bring to a boil then simmer over low heat for 3 hours. Strain the broth. If using only chicken, 1 1/2 hours is enough.

If you like this recipe you may also like this similar Polish beet soup – this soup is creamy and serve with mashed potatoes and onion bacon topping. We also love this beet greens soup!

Did you make this recipe? RATE THE RECIPE or tell me in the COMMENTS how you liked it! You can also add a photo of your dish. It would make me very happy and will help other readers. Thank you!!