Harvard Beets Recipe

A white bowl filled with ruby-red harvard beets. The sweet and sour sauce is velvety smooth and eye-appealing.

Every Sunday meal that we ate at my grandma's house when I was a child had harvard beets on the menu. Since my mother never made them, my grandma "spoiled me" by making them every chance she could.

I think my other grandmother was jealous; she tried once to make them for me, but it just wasn't the same. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings.

This sweet and sour dish with a velvety sauce has been an important part of my holiday dinners ever since, even now that I'm probably the age my grandma was when she made it for me.

Here is my grandma's recipe for harvard beets.

How to make harvard beets

The ingredient amounts are included below in the recipe.

If you're making this dish with fresh beets, you'll need to cook them first. I have directions on how to cook beets in this post about how to pressure-can them, and a tip about how to retain beets' deep jewel-like color.

Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. I use organic cane sugar.

A black saucepan with granulated cane sugar and cornstarch.

Then drain the beets (either home-cooked, home-canned or commercially canned from the grocery store). Save 1/4 cup of the liquid from the beets. This is important!

Add the 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid to the vinegar, and add it to the sugar and cornstarch in the saucepan.

If you use water your sauce will be a weird, gummy-looking pink instead of this deep ruby red, so don't do that! Use the liquid from the beets.

Making the sauce for harvard beets, a delicious sweet and sour beet recipe.

Whisk it together, and bring to a boil. (Don't add the beets yet.)

Let this mixture boil for five minutes.

Bringing the reby-red sauce to a boil for harvard beets.

Then add the cooked beets, either sliced or cubed, that you drained earlier.

Sliced beets in a saucepan. Harvard beets recipe.

Stir and let stand for half an hour or more. Just before serving, bring the pot to a boil again, to warm it all up, then add the butter. Stir when the butter has melted.

A white bowl on a table. The bowl holds harvard beets, a dish that combines sliced beets with a velvety-smooth, ruby red sauce.

How delicious is this?!

I know that some people don't like beets, but this is a delicious way to enjoy an easy-to-grow vegetable. It's the perfect combination of sweet and sour, with a velvety smooth sauce that's a delight to the eyes as well as to the tongue.

Should I confess that I finish up any sauce that's left in the bowl after dinner, even though the beets are gone? It's deliciously sweet and sour at the same time.

Harvard Beets Recipe

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup mild vinegar
1/4 cup beet juice (drained from the can of beets, or use the cooking liquid)
1 pint or can of sliced beets or about 12 small beets, cooked and sliced
2 Tbsp butter

Combine sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Add vinegar and beet juice and whisk until well blended. Boil for five minutes, then add the sliced, cooked beets. Let stand 30 minutes, then bring to a boil again, and add butter just before serving.

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