The Easy, Zesty Dressing We Want to Put on All Our Roasted Vegetables This Fall

I love beets, in part because of the sheer variety of colors they come in. But the real point of interest for me is the behavior of the water-soluble pigments responsible for those colors (called betalains—the red ones are known as betacyanins and the yellow ones are known as betaxanthins). For example, some betacyanin pigments degrade during cooking, but if you let the cooked beets sit for a bit, the betacyanins will regenerate!

Beets are also rich in sugars, much like the carrots and onions I pair them with in the recipe below. The three vegetables complement one another, both in terms of their inherent flavors, and because they undergo similar processes when cooked, becoming both sweeter and more texturally palatable.

I add some brightness to the root vegetables by tossing them in a fragrant lime dressing sweetened with a little brown sugar, which adds a bit of caramel flavor. I also incorporate a small amount of red pepper flakes to give the dressing some heat. I highly recommend using a microplane zester to prepare the zest and the garlic for the dressing; the garlic and zest are punchier as a result, and the finer grating yields a far smoother dressing.

Finally, I like to garnish this dish with crispy golden brown shallots. While I prefer to cook mine in the oven, you can use fried shallots, done in a deep fryer or a microwave, or you can use store-bought fried shallots. You can also easily bump up the quantity of shallots I've indicated below to make extra (store extra crispy shallots in an airtight container in the refrigerator), but remember to divide and spread them out in a single layer on as many baking sheets as needed. Spreading them out allows for better evaporation of the liquid and helps with the browning and crisping.

I usually serve these roasted root vegetables with plain boiled rice but you can also eat them all by themselves, although I've also found that bit of Greek yogurt, salted to taste, works wonderfully with the sweet root vegetables and the dressing.