Beet Noodles with Tomatoes, Feta and Bacon
Try this Beet Noodles with Tomatoes, Feta and Bacon recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Beet Noodles with Tomatoes, Feta and Bacon recipe, or contribute your own.
- Carbohydrate 2.07637 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.09701 g
- Fiber 0.541200015425682 g
- Protein 0.47963 g
- Saturated Fat 0.014273 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (41g)
- Sodium 40.0217864583334 mg
- Sugar 1.53516998457432 g
- Trans Fat 0.028411 g
- Calories 10 calories
Step-by-step
- Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and coat with cooking spray. Once heated, add in the bacon strips and cook until crisp, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate.
- Remove about half of the bacon fat from the skillet and set the skillet aside for 1-2 minutes to cool down and then place back over heat. Add in the beet noodles and toss for 1 minute or until the noodles begin to wilt. Then, add in the tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper and cover and let cook for 5-7 minutes, uncovering occasionally to toss, or until beet noodles are wilted and cooked to al dente.
- Once done, transfer the beet noodle mixture to a serving platter, crumble over with the bacon and garnish with parsley and feta. Serve immediately.
Raw beet ribbons contain earthy geosmin compounds that can taste excessively muddy unless balanced by high-sodium cured meats and aged milk proteins. Rendering three to four strips of bacon over medium-high heat yields enough rendered fat to coat the skillet while leaving precisely half the grease behind for cooking the vegetables. That retained fat carries umami-rich pork solids that adhere directly to the dense root vegetable strands as they hit the pan. Raw garlic added alongside cherry tomatoes releases allicin into the oil, transforming the pan juices into a coherent glaze within five to seven minutes of covered simmering.
Beets lack the natural gluten starches found in semolina pasta, meaning they transition quickly from crisp-tender to mushy if overheated. Tossing the noodles for exactly sixty seconds initially breaks down their rigid cell walls just enough to absorb surrounding moisture without losing structural integrity. Covering the skillet traps steam, which softens the dense root fibers to an al dente bite while blistering the cherry tomatoes until their skins split and release natural glutamic acid.
Salty, brined sheep or cow milk feta provides lactic acidity that cuts straight through the heavy pork fat and sweet earthiness of the beets. Crumbled cheese should be applied strictly at the final plating stage rather than during the cooking phase to prevent the proteins from melting completely into an oily emulsion. Fresh flat-leaf parsley offers a volatile hit of herbaceous limonene to lift the palate between rich bites of bacon and cheese.
Goat cheese or sharp aged pecorino make viable substitutes for feta, though both will alter the final salt balance significantly; reduce the added sea salt by half if swapping for pecorino. Should fresh beets be unavailable, spiralized butternut squash can replace them at a one-to-one volume ratio, though squash requires two fewer minutes of cooking time due to its lower initial density.
