It is impossible to find a more traditional dish than red borsch in Russian-Ukrainian cuisine. It is also very popular in many other countries of the former CIS. What is the reason for such an amazing love for this seemingly completely ordinary soup? Let's try to figure it out together by answering the question of how to cook red beetroot soup with beets. A step-by-step recipe with a photo of the result will help us with this.
Classic borsch recipe
To make the dish tasty and rich, you will have to work hard. But all efforts will pay off very quickly. After all, the main charm of borsch, unlike other varieties of first courses, is the opportunity to enjoy a rich aromatic dinner a few days after its preparation. A real find for any hostess.
Moreover, the taste of yesterday’s and even yesterday’s borscht often surpasses a freshly prepared dish in saturation and brightness.
Consider how to cook red beetroot soup with beets without vinegar according to the recipe with a step by step photo.
To do this, you will need:
- 500 g of pork or beef (you can add beef bones for richness ) ;
- 300 g of beets;
- 500 g of cabbage and potatoes;
- 2 pieces of onions and carrots;
- a few tablespoons of tomato paste;
- cooking oil for frying;
- salt and any spices to your taste.
Stage 1. Bouillon
Place a pot of water and meat on a small fire. Immediately after boiling, add salt along with all the seasonings. In order for the broth to acquire its famous corporate taste, one should not bring it to a boil, waiting for the appearance of only small bubbles. In this mode, the broth languishes for about 2 hours, after which all bones should be removed from it.
Stage 2. Preparation of vegetables
Peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes, leaving one whole tuber. He will play his special role in the finished borsch.
Free the beets from the peel and finely chop or use a grater. Chop the cabbage in the usual way.
Peel and finely chop the onions and carrots.
Stage 3. Frying
Dressing with fried vegetables is an integral part of almost any soup. And in red beetroot soup with beets, it is simply irreplaceable.
It is necessary to fry the chopped vegetables: carrots and onions to a light golden hue, adding tomato dressing and slightly stewing the resulting mixture.
Step 4. Mixing the Ingredients
Feel free to send roasting and other prepared vegetables to the broth. Mix well, adding spices if necessary. Cooking time after this step will be approximately 25 minutes.
Stage 5. Secret move
Before pouring borsch on portioned plates, you should remove a whole potato tuber, knead it with a fork, and then send it back to the pan. This little secret will give the dish his taste from a Russian borsch familiar from childhood.
Stage 6. Submission
The dish is served hot, if desired, it can be seasoned with sour cream. Its taste is perfectly complemented by fresh herbs and garlic croutons or regular rye bread.
There are many recipes with photos. Cooking red beet soup with beets using one of them will be quite easy, the main thing is to remember a number of important points.
Little tricks
Every good housewife always has some secret tricks in stock so that her culinary masterpiece will not leave indifferent those who are sitting at the dining table. Let's see what secrets our inventive chefs for red borsch with beets have in store.
The broth should be boiled only with meat on the bone. Thus, it will turn out to be especially saturated, enriched with proteins and fats from the bone marrow. The meat is placed in cold water. This is due to the fact that, once in hot water, the meat flesh immediately “overgrows with a crust” of a protein in a denatured state. As a result, all the juices remain inside, and the broth turns out to be liquid and fresh. Cool water gives the exact opposite effect: due to gradual heating, the taste properties of the pulp and bone are completely transferred to the finished dish.
The meat component should be raw or baked.
Raw meat products are traditionally used. But the secret with baking is not known to everyone. Meanwhile, preliminary heat treatment contributes to the formation of a large number of readily soluble substances in the meat, which will eventually create a natural broth concentrate.
To level the taste variety, it is advisable to resort to a sour-sweet combination. Vinegar or a special kind of sour tomato is responsible for sourness. Regular sugar added in a small amount will add sweetness.
Particular attention should be paid to the quality of beets used. After all, it is from her that the color and taste of the finished soup will depend.
But back to the culinary diversity in the preparation of this traditional Russian dish. How to cook red borsch with beets without vinegar in the best traditions of Russian cuisine?
Red beetroot soup with beetroot
Ingredients:
- half a kilogram of any meat;
- 3-5 medium potatoes;
- 2 carrots;
- 3 beets (the elongated version is perfect due to the special sweetness);
- medium onion;
- 1 bell pepper;
- a tablespoon of tomato paste or a few fresh tomatoes;
- a pair of garlic cloves;
- ¼ cabbage head;
- salt, pepper, vegetable oil to taste.
Instruction:
- The meat must be cut into medium pieces, add cold water and a little salt. During the boiling process, the resulting foam should be continuously removed.
- All vegetable ingredients must be peeled and washed thoroughly. Potatoes can be given any shape at the request of the hostess herself: cubes, straws, sticks. Next, the vegetable is sent to a boiling broth (an hour after boiling).
- Garlic and onion are chopped very finely for further frying with a little oil.
- Thinly chopped or grated carrots and beets are sent to the same pan. All ingredients are mixed and stewed for about 10 minutes over very low heat.
- At this time, you can do tomatoes. There are a lot of options for their processing: wipe through a sieve, grater or just finely chop. The main thing is that in the end a delicious tomato juice with pieces of pulp is formed. In the absence of fresh vegetables, you should throw a spoonful of regular tomato paste into the frying pan.
- It remains to add finely chopped bell pepper to the vegetable mixture and stew the composition for another 5-7 minutes.
- Next is the turn of cabbage. This vegetable is sent to a pot with boiling potatoes and meat in finely chopped form.
- It remains to add the vegetable pejarka, boil everything together for several minutes and throw fresh greens into the finished dish.
- Before serving, the borsch should be a little infused.
You can add sour cream, cook garlic pampushki and start a meal.
Here is such a simple recipe for how to cook red beetroot soup with beets without vinegar. Use for health!
But will borscht without meat be as tasty? We will clarify this using the following recipe.
Lenten version with mushrooms
So, how to cook red beetroot soup with beets without meat? Yes, so that no worse than the classic? The task is not easy. But we will try.
Prepare the products:
- potatoes and beets - 200 g each;
- fresh mushrooms - 250 g;
- cabbage - 200 g;
- medium carrots;
- medium onion;
- a couple of spoons of tomato paste;
- a few tablespoons of lemon juice;
- 2 tablespoons of sugar;
- seasoned salt to taste.
Start with mushrooms. They must be thoroughly washed, cleaned and boiled.
Fry the traditional tandem of onions and carrots with a little pasta, which can be replaced with fresh tomatoes.
Process the potatoes and beets: the first must be cut into medium cubes, the second - in the form of a thin straw, slightly extinguished.
Send cabbage with potatoes and frying to boiling mushroom broth.
The last step is to add lemon juice and beets with sugar. Here is such a sweet and sour taste compote. But this is the whole charm of this dish.
Now you know how to cook red beetroot soup with beets without vinegar, but preserving the necessary acidity.
Lean version with beans
Take the amount and composition of the ingredients from the previous recipe, but replace the mushrooms with boiled beans, or you can take a canned version. And now we have before us a completely new dish with other flavoring accents.
How to cook red beetroot soup with beets and beans? Let's get a look.
Cooking process:
- Grated carrots and beets in a cleaned form on a medium grater.
- We chop the onion in the usual way.
- Cut the potato into small pieces.
- We turn cabbage into thin straws.
- Bring to a boil 3 liters of water, salt and throw the cubes of potatoes.
- Next, we send cabbage to the broth.
- Fry the remaining vegetables on low heat for about 10 minutes.
- Then add the paste to them and simmer all together for a few more minutes.
- Ready vegetable mixture is sent to the broth.
- We spread canned beans with juice or fresh boiled there.
- Bring the composition to a boil and boil for 7 minutes.
- If necessary, salt and dilute with water in case of excessively thick consistency.
- Add 3 tbsp. tablespoons of lemon juice to give a sour taste.
- Pour delicious and healthy borsch in portioned cups, seasoned with sour cream or mayonnaise if desired.
Beetroot soup
Usually, beetroot is called red borsch without the addition of cabbage. Such a dish will have to the dining table in any form. It is equally good in hot and cold conditions, and probably this explains the amazing popularity of this culinary masterpiece. The composition of the soup may vary slightly, but one ingredient remains unchanged. As the name implies, it is beetroot.
So, how to cook red borsch with beets and without cabbage?
Structure:
- pork ribs - 700 g;
- 1 large beetroot;
- onions and carrots - 1 pc.;
- potatoes - 3 pcs.;
- tomato paste - 2 tbsp. spoons;
- dried celery root - half a teaspoon;
- a few peas of allspice;
- vinegar - 1 tbsp. the spoon;
- 2 leaves of laurel;
- garlic, pepper and salt to your taste;
- greens to decorate the finished dish.
Cooking process:
- Divide the pork ribs into portions and pour cool water.
- Throw celery, peeled onions, seasonings in the form of bay leaf and pepper peas here.
- Put the broth to boil.
- At this time, peel the carrots and potatoes from the peel, chop them and send them to a common container.
- Hold the grated beets on low heat for about 15 minutes. with vinegar and water.
- Send beetroot, garlic and spices to the broth.
- Let the cooked borscht boil for several minutes, after which it must be removed from the heat, pour into plates and, garnished with chopped greens, serve.
Cold beetroot
In the midst of hot summer days, cold beetroot is in particular demand.
Consider how to cook red beetroot soup with beetroot - a recipe with a photo of the result. It will be a classic with bread kvass and beetroot broth.
Ingredients:
- 2 large carrots;
- 3 medium beets;
- 2 fresh cucumbers;
- 2 boiled eggs;
- 650 g bread kvass;
- 650 g of beetroot decoction;
- tsp sugar + tbsp. a spoon of vinegar;
- a little sour cream;
- to taste salt and citric acid;
- greens.
Recipe:
- Carrots with beets must be boiled, and then cut into thin strips.
- Cucumbers should be cut in the same way.
- Mix vegetables with beetroot and kvass.
- Then you need to season the borsch with vinegar and citric acid.
- It remains to add sugar, salt and greens at your discretion.
Feeding the beetroot to the table, you can decorate it with sour cream and a cut boiled egg.
Borsch with sauerkraut
Another option on how to cook red beetroot soup with beets without vinegar. A step-by-step recipe with a photo of the result.
Products:
- 500 g of beef ribs;
- 250 g of potatoes;
- 200 g sauerkraut;
- 300 g of beets;
- 1 pc. carrots and onions;
- 1.5 tbsp. tablespoons of tomato paste;
- 5 garlic cloves;
- 1 tbsp. a spoonful of sugar;
- greens;
- salt and spices to taste.
Pour prepared ribs with cold water and put on medium heat.
Squeeze and chop the cabbage thoroughly.
Fry the onions and carrots well, adding the pasta and stewing for two minutes.
Also, lightly simmer the chopped beets with added water and sugar.
Send all the previously made vegetable mixes, as well as chopped potatoes and garlic, into the stock.
Stir and take the sample for salinity and acid. If sourness is not enough, then you can make up for it with a couple of spoons of cabbage juice.
Lastly, put the stewed beets.
After this, keep the soup on low heat for about 20 minutes and then give it time to brew well.
Red borsch in the slow cooker
A great way to simplify the preparation of any dish is to use a slow cooker. This rule also works with borsch.
How to cook red beetroot soup with beets in a slow cooker?
The composition of the dish is ordinary:
- vegetable mixture of cabbage, potatoes, beets, garlic, onions and carrots;
- spices in the form of bay leaves, pepper peas and salt;
- dressing with tomato paste or chopped fresh tomatoes.
Cooking process:
- Boil the meat for 5-7 minutes to make the broth secondary, since it is healthier.
- Chop the carrots and onions, but do not overcook them for reasons of benefit.
- Cut cabbage with potatoes in the usual way.
- Put all ingredients except beets in a bowl and sprinkle with salt, spices and, if desired, herbs.
- Set the timer for the required time according to the instructions.
- Grind beets by any method (this is not important) and put out a little in an ordinary frying pan for softness and preserving a bright saturated color with a small amount of water.
- Put beetroot dressing in borsch and hold for another 5 minutes.
Here are such simple and affordable recipes for traditional Russian dishes. You can try each, choosing for yourself one thing. Or alternate all the options, adding variety to your daily menu. The main thing is to remember that everything comes with experience. So, often cook red beetroot soup with beets, delighting your loved ones with this tasty and healthy dish.