This chilly purple beet salad with carrots, mayo and cilantro is creamy, tangy, and surprisingly refreshing—excellent for summer time BBQs, potlucks, or meal prep.

Purple Beet Salad
I’ll be sincere—beets have by no means been my go-to vegetable. However this creamy beet salad recipe fully modified my thoughts. Made with tender purple beets, carrots, mayo, and many recent cilantro, it’s brilliant, refreshing, and completely sudden. It jogs my memory of a lighter potato salad, making it the proper facet dish in your subsequent BBQ or summer time potluck. That is the recipe that lastly acquired me to love beets—and to my husband’s shock, he went again for seconds! For an additional variation, attempt my Uncooked Beet Salad with Apples and Carrots.
What You’ll Want
Listed here are the components for this creamy beet salad recipe. See the recipe card under for the precise measurements.
- Purple Beets: Minimize off the stems and leaves, and wash the beets. Attempt to get beets about the identical dimension, so that they prepare dinner evenly.
- Carrots add taste plus vitamin A and fiber.
- Recent Cilantro balances the sharp onions and creamy mayo.
- Onions for crunch
- Mild Mayo for creaminess.
- Salt and Black Pepper for seasoning

Yield: 6 servings
Serving Measurement: 1 cup salad
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Boil beets in water till mushy, about 50 minutes. Peel and reduce into small ½” cubes.
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Add the carrots to the boiling water and prepare dinner 15-20 minutes till tender. Drain and reduce into chunk dimension cubes.
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Mix diced onion, carrots, beets, mayonnaise, cilantro, salt and pepper.
Final Step:
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Serving: 1 cup salad, Energy: 65 kcal, Carbohydrates: 10 g, Protein: 1.5 g, Fats: 2.5 g, Saturated Fats: 0.5 g, Sodium: 145 mg, Fiber: 3 g, Sugar: 6 g
The way to Make Beet Salad
Prep the onions and cilantro whereas the beets and carrots prepare dinner. As soon as they’re achieved, it solely takes a couple of minutes to assemble the salad. See the recipe card on the backside for printable instructions.



- Cook dinner the Greens: Put the beets in a big pot and canopy with water. Convey it to a boil and prepare dinner for about 50 minutes till mushy. Take away the beets with a strainer or slotted spoon and add the carrots to the boiling water. Cook dinner till tender and drain.
- Minimize the Veggies: Peel the beets by rubbing the pores and skin off together with your fingers whereas rinsing them below water. Then, reduce the beets and carrots into small cubes.
- Make the Salad: Mix the beets and carrots with diced onions, mayo, cilantro, salt, and pepper.

Variations
- Beets: Should you’re quick on time, purchase precooked beets within the produce part of your grocery store. They’re a incredible timesaver. And you need to use canned if wanted, however nothing beats recent beets.
- Make It Golden: Substitute golden beets.
- Roasted Beet Salad: To roast the beets as a substitute of boiling, wrap them in foil and bake on a rimmed baking sheet at 400°F, relying on their dimension, for 50 minutes to 1 hour quarter-hour. As soon as you may simply pierce them with a fork, take away them from the oven and allow them to cool.
- Onions: Use scallions or purple onions.
- Vegan: Use vegan mayo as a substitute of normal.
- Herbs: Should you don’t like cilantro or wish to attempt one thing completely different, swap it with dill, or chives.
- Surprising Twist: My pal makes an identical salad, however she provides chopped scorching canines. It sounds unusual, I do know, but it surely’s really actually good!
Serving Recommendations
This summer time beet salad is a incredible facet dish for weeknight dinners or yard BBQs. Listed here are some concepts that might be delish with it:
Storage Ideas
Since this purple beet salad is eaten chilly, it’s excellent to prep forward.
- Make Forward: Put together the salad a day early and refrigerate till able to serve.
- Refrigerate for as much as 4 days complete. Because it incorporates mayo, don’t go away it at room temperature for greater than 2 hours.
Skinnytasters Tried It & Liked It!
This creamy beet salad has been successful in kitchens throughout—right here’s what a few of you needed to say (and the enjoyable twists you tried!):
- “That is the strangest salad recipe, lol. BUT, it was so good I ate the entire thing myself!” – One reader used pre-cooked Love Beets and skipped the cilantro—nonetheless a win!
- “I added inexperienced peas and a splash of Highland Home dressing to the mayo—additionally scrumptious!” – Victoria
- “I’m not a carrot fan, however I add them anyway for the vitamin. You may’t actually style them!”
- “My household devoured this at our 4th of July BBQ. I used canned beets, matchstick carrots, and added dill. It was gone earlier than I acquired a chunk!”
- “I subbed parsley for cilantro and it was nice. A tasty manner to make use of up further carrots!”

Extra Beet Recipes You’ll Love
For extra dinner and facet dish concepts utilizing beets, try these 5 scrumptious beet recipes to encourage your subsequent meal!