Our pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint comes together quickly and is loaded with flavour. A bed of homemade whipped feta is topped with cumin-spiced pan-roasted butternut pumpkin pieces and baby beetroots, sprinkled with crunchy pistachios and fresh mint leaves, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Serve with toasted sourdough, crackers or pita crisps for scooping.
I’m sharing this quick and easy recipe for a pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint for as part of a new series of new recipes for delicious snacks, finger food, canapés, hors d’oeuvres, appetisers, and sharing dishes for casual entertaining. It’s one of our best beetroot recipes and one of our best recipes with nuts.
So far we’ve shared recipes for a creamy avocado dip with asparagus, spiced chickpeas and pangrattato and smoked mussels on hummus with smoky paprika and chives, but until we share more, you could browse these recipe collections for homemade dips, Spanish tapas, Basque pintxos, Mediterranean mezze, picnic food and pot luck ideas if you’re entertaining.
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If you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, do browse our archives, where we have many hundreds of recipes from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked and travelled. Now let me tell you all about my recipe for pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint.
Pumpkin Beetroot Salad on Whipped Feta with Pistachios and Mint
This pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint is deliciously addictive. How could it not be? Pumpkin and beetroot and are one of those great ingredient combinations – like tomato and buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and melon, cucumber and yoghurt, and asparagus and mushrooms. You can’t go wrong with those classic ingredient pairings.
You also don’t need to do much to great ingredient couplings to make a great dish. Drizzle on some extra virgin olive oil, shower with fresh herbs, sprinkle on some nuts, seeds or dried fruit, grind a little cracked black pepper and sea salt over the lot, and you’ve got a great starter, salad or side that you can serve with dips and crisps or alongside skewers, kebabs or meatballs.
Another great friend of pumpkin and beetroot is feta cheese – or goat’s cheese or any white cheese or creamy Greek yoghurt. And if you blend that combination with extra virgin olive oil, you have a wonderful homemade whipped feta dip or spread that you can use as a base for a salad or vegetables – or dollop the whipped feta on top if you prefer.
If you need further evidence of the fabulousness of these flavour combos, try these recipes for a roast beetroot salad with feta, rucola, pistachios on cumin-spiced carrot hummus, a beetroot feta arugula salad with walnuts on butter bean puree, a pumpkin lentil salad with beetroot, goat cheese and poppy seeds, or this beet and carrot salad with goat cheese, arugula and radish. They’re all a bit ‘same-same but different’ as we say here in Southeast Asia, which shows you how versatile these kinds of salads are.
You can treat this pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint as a salad-y snack that you can serve like a dip with crunchy crisps or crispy pita chips for scooping it up or with a spoon to pile it onto homemade croutons or toasted sourdough and eat like finger food.
You could serve it as you would Mediterranean style mezze, as one of an array of homemade dips – it would work alongside this Greek eggplant dip, artichoke dip, taramosalata, and tzatziki – or with starters and salads such as this roasted cherry tomatoes on goat’s cheese as sides to souvlaki (skewers) and keftedes (meatballs).
Tips to Making this Pumpkin Beetroot Salad on Whipped Feta with Pistachios and Mint
I only have a few tips to making this recipe for a pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint as it’s quick and easy to make.
Whipped Feta
If you’re super tight on time you could create a base of spreadable feta or even a store-bought feta dip, but I love making homemade dips and this whipped feta is so easy. All you need to do is add the feta cheese and a little goat’s cheese and/or Greek yoghurt (optional), along wth finely chopped fresh mint, salt and garlic powder to a small food processor.
With the top hole open, blend that all up, then with the blender still going, slowly drizzle in 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, continuing to blend until you have a smooth texture. Scrape the creamy whipped feta into a bowl and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or until ready to serve.
I love to spread the whipped feta out on the serving plate to create a base for this pumpkin beetroot salad, as I did for this whipped feta and cucumber salad. It’s a very Middle Eastern style of presentation, like this roasted cauliflower on hummus and baby corn on creamy white beans.
My inspiration is always the balela salad, a Levantine salad spread on soupy chickpeas, and this Antalya version of the Turkish white bean salad, in which the salad is also piled onto the creamy white beans.
Pan-Roasting the Pumpkin
You could simply stir-fry the butternut pumpkin but pan-roasting the pumpkin is a little faster in my experience. To a lidded frying pan over medium-high, you’ll add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, heat it until shimmering, add the pumpkin pieces, sprinkle on a teaspoon of ground cumin, and pan-fry for a few minutes until the pumpkin browns and even chars a little.
Use tongs to turn the pumpkin pieces over to brown and char on the other side. Then after a few minutes, put the lid on the pan, then turn the heat off, and remove the pan from the stove. Pierce a piece of pumpkin with a skewer to test it if you like; it should be tender-soft. Use tongs to transfer the pumpkin pieces to a tray to cool.
Spices
Our pumpkin beetroot salad recipe calls for ground cumin to be sprinkled on the pumpkin, but I also love a combo of cumin and ground paprika, and if you want to add some warmth, sprinkle on a pinch of Aleppo pepper, and for heat, a sprinkle of chilli flakes.
Baby Beetroots
I’ve been buying these incredibly delicious vac-packed baby beetroots sold in the veggie section of ALDI here in Australia, which I think are superior to canned beetroots, which I find too sweet.
You could also roast beetroots yourself. Terence and I love roasting beetroots as we love their natural sweetness. If you want to roast beetroots, see this beetroot salad post for beetroot roasting tips.
Toast the Pistachios
We use this adorable little fry pan for frying nuts and while you can dry-fry the pistachios, the olive oil gives the pistachios a sheen and brings out their colours, and, after all, we eat first with our eyes. Add a teaspoon of olive oil to the pan, heat it, and then add the pistachios.
Take care not to let the pistachios brown as they’ll then char in no time. After the pan is hot and oil heats you need to continually tilt the pan to shift the nuts around for a minute so until they colour and crisp up. Immediately transfer the pistachios to a small ceramic dish to cool until ready to serve.
Assemble the Salad
To assemble this pumpkin beetroot salad, you’ll scoop out some whipped feta and pile it onto a serving plate, using the back of the spoon to spread it around. Then you’ll arrange the pumpkin pieces and baby beetroots on top. Lastly, sprinkle on pistachios and fresh mint leaves, drizzle on a little extra virgin olive oil. Serve with toasted sourdough, homemade croutons or crispy pita chips.
Note: the measures below make a serving that’s twice the size of what’s pictured. As there are only two of us, I made a smaller size, kept the ingredients separated in sealed containers, refrigerated them, and made this pumpkin beetroot salad a couple of days later. It was just as delicious. Enjoy!
Pumpkin Beetroot Salad on Whipped Feta with Pistachios and Mint
Ingredients
- 150 g feta cheese
- 100 g goat’s cheese - preferable spreadable
- 2 tbsp creamy Greek yoghurt - optional
- 1 tbsp fresh mint - finely chopped
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - divided
- 400 g butternut pumpkin - cut into 3cm pieces
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 250 g baby beetroots - sliced in half
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp pistachios
- 1 cup fresh mint leaves
Instructions
- Make the whipped feta: to a small food processor, add the feta cheese, goat’s cheese, Greek yoghurt (optional), finely chopped fresh mint, salt and garlic powder; with the top hole open, blend then slowly drizzle in 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, continuing to blend until you have a smooth texture. Scrape the creamy whipped feta into a bowl and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or until ready to serve.
- Pan-roast the pumpkin: to a lidded frying pan over medium-high, add 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, heat until shimmering, add the pumpkin pieces, sprinkle a teaspoon of ground cumin over the pumpkin, and leave to pan-fry for a few minutes until the pumpkin browns and even chars a little.
- Use tongs to turn the pumpkin pieces over to brown on the other side. After a few minutes, put the lid on the pan, turn the heat off, and remove the pan from the stove. Use tongs to transfer the pumpkin pieces to a tray to cool.
- Toast the pistachios: to a small pan over medium add a teaspoon of olive oil and heat then add the pistachios. Continually tilt the pan to shift the nuts around for a minute so they colour and crisp up but don’t brown. Transfer the pistachios to a small ceramic dish to cool until ready to serve.
- Assemble the salad: scoop out some whipped feta and pile it onto a serving plate, using the back of the spoon to spread it around. Arrange the pumpkin pieces and baby beetroots on top. Sprinkle on pistachios and fresh mint leaves, drizzle on a little extra virgin olive oil, and serve with warmed bread, toasted sourdough, crackers and/or pita crisps.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this recipe for pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with pistachios and fresh mint as we’d love to hear how it turned out for you.
