Edible Radish, Beet & Carrot Top Greens Salad : No Waste
Carrot Radish Beet Tops Salad
There’s a misfortune and almost tragic waste of food occurring in the vegetative world. Greens that that we tend to overlook or don’t normally deem as edible are being tossed to the side as trash or compost material. Beautiful green tops from beets are normally valued as edible, but great tops from radishes and carrots are often poorly mistaken as un-edible.
Sadly, some beet and mostly carrot and radish top greens rarely ever make it to the plate. They’re not poisonous (so long as you have no allergies) and are simply, delicious.
Edible Beet and Radish Greens
Granted, when these tops are bought when the tops are older and tough, the texture and bitter taste can be un-pleasing to the palate. In addition to pesticide concerns that may lay remnant on the greens (buy pesticide-free greens!), these can be valid considerations to tossing them away. But when gardeners who are able to harvest the greens when they’re fresh and tender and who don’t use chemical sprays on their vegetable plots, there’s no reason to waste these marvelous greens! High quality, and superbly tender green tops can be found at farmers markets as well.
Fresh from the garden, carrot, radish and beet greens are so tender and flavorful in their raw state. When the roots are still young, the leaf colors and textures bring a whole new dimension to salads. Their nuances really make a compelling addition to almost any dish.
Radish Green Tops: The wonders of radish greens tops are endless. Completely edible and wonderfully peppery in taste, these can be add great bite to so many dishes. Even when they’ve reached their bitter stage, a few leaves tossed in a lettuce leaf salad will add a nice “bite”. If you can’t harvest baby radish leaves, then look for bunches with the most tender and new leaves when at the farmers market.
Carrot Tops: These delicate, lacy and gorgeous leaves are a wonderful finish to salads. Also high in nutrients, they’re great in brothy, healing soups. When buying your carrots, don’t let anyone remove their tops! Keep them on the carrots and enjoy!
Beet Tops- These greens get lots of salad love and their brilliant red colors are deserving of all their salad alcolades. But even beyond the salad, beet greens are wonderful when prepared in other types of dishes. Treat all these tops like any other nutritious green and feel good about it too. No waste. Let’s all forage ahead and start eating leaf to root, top to tip, or what ever it takes to take the whole vegetable to your plate. Here’s a great article about cooking beet greens.
enjoy all your greens! Here’s more recipes for you: Baked beet leaves recipe, Roasted radish with greens.
-diane and todd
Salad of Radish, Carrot and/or Beet tops with Vermouth Vinaigrette
Ingredients
- 1 pound greens- any combinations of radish, carrot, beet or lettuce Remove any tough stems or central veins. Washed and dried.
- 1/4 cup sliced carrots or radishes
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar , or vinegar of choice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce , gives great flvaor
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder , optional
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 1/3 cup grape seed oil , olive or salad oil
- optional accompaniments- tomatoes , toasted almonds, walnuts, croutons
Instructions
- In a medium bowl or mason jar, combine all ingredients together except for greens, vegetables and accompaniments (white wine vinegar, dry vermouth, dijon mustard, soy sauce, curry powder, sugar, salt, black pepper, and grape seed oil).
- In bowl, whisk ingredients together well. In mason jar, close lid tightly and shake well until all ingredients are combined
- Toss into greens, then top with accompaniments.
You can gather wild mustard greens (they grow everywhere as a weed) the tender leaves and the young tops including the flower buds are delicious treated the same as any other green and are loaded with nutrition. Harvest before the flowers open.
Just stumbled upon your blog today. Thank you so much for the education and inspiration! I will be a regular here from now on. Like many others, I had no idea I could eat all those vegetable greens! I plan to try it soon!
The perfect textures and flavors combo for me!
You don’t specify if its sweet vermouth or dry vermouth. I will assume dry but let me know if I’m wrong.
Thanks.
Dry is correct.
thanks for your information. I have an abundance of beet top right now. Do you know if they can be blanched and frozen like spinach?
Should work just fine.
Great recipe ideas. I really feel sorry for all those people who leave the beet greens sitting on the shelf in the supermarket. Gotta remember to ask the produce manager if he’d be willing to give them to me, since they probably just throw them in the trash at the end of the day.
I already checked and it’s a no can do due to store regulations….a legal thing.
I could’ve sworn I read an article from the NY Times saying that carrot greens were toxic. I would double-check.
There have been “experts” saying they are perfectly safe, and other “experts” saying they are potentially toxic for some individuals. At this point it seems best for everyone to do their own research and make the best decision for themselves. Thanks for bringing up the point.
We – Koreans – make Chong Gak Kimchi with the whole radish all the time. I love radish tops in it. Nothing goes to waste!
I use carrot top instead of parsley. And I dry them for later too.
Your links on this page for great recipes is no longer working (they did last week). Thanks!
A little late to the post, yet I just purchased some nice looking radishes. I’m not sure whether they are organic or not. I want to try the greens because they look delicious, but I’m scared to eat them as they might have pesticide residue on them. Should I wash them really good and chance it or not/
That should be a consideration for the radishes as much as it is for the greens. Will they probably kill you… Most likely not. However we aren’t doctors or scientists who’ve researched the effects of pesticides on our bodies. We all consume quite of a bit of stuff which we have no idea about. If you are comfortable eating the radishes, you should be comfortable eating the greens.
This inspired me to use carrot greens in a pasta sauce. Sauteed, they lose some of their astringency and thicken up the sauce while acting as a good parsley substitute.
Finally tried out this recipe because my Fresh Market had carrots and beets with some beautiful, fresh looking greens (can usually get beet green suitable for sautee, and the carrot tops are usually pretty nasty looking)…So delicious! That dressing is a keeper too!
I just made this tonight and it was awesome!
I put it alongside some grilled lamb sirloin steaks, and believe me the salad was the belle of the ball.
I didn’t have any vermouth so I used sake (rice wine) instead and added a whole sleu of other veggies (cilantro, jicama, baby spinach, red pepper) since the carrot & radish tops were too tough to eat.
The dressing is amazing – definitely our favorite vinaigrette from now on.
Thanks for the great recipe 🙂
Amazing I have just got in to vegtable topps after years of eating and cooking.
Most U.K. outlets sell veg without there topps, what a con.
Here in Munich where I am at the moment, they come with or without topps.
I love making soup and am about to fry some up with potatoe and onion.
This is my new favorite site! Thank you so much for the video of your garden. It was amazing. Thx for reminding us not to give up and how much hard work and time it took for your garden to mature. You are completely right about container gardening in any available space. I’ve done the city window sill thing just to save money on herbs then later managed to build a raised bed in a back yard as well. Your garden is a reflection of how much love you guys have. Very cool. p.s. I made Banh Mi today. So good. Thx for the inspiration.