This family recipe for beet soup, passed down from generation to generation, is making its way from Ukraine to North Dakota to you.
I’d like to share a very special recipe a patient shared with me: his family’s cherished, handed-down recipe for borscht, or beet soup. Anyone who cooks knows that a family recipe is a gift more precious than gold. So, you can imagine how touched I was when my patient Lawrence brought me a beautifully presented Mason jar of his great-grandma’s borscht as a surprise, along with its story and recipe.
Lillie Krietzky, Lawrence’s great-grandmother, brought the recipe when she migrated to North Dakota from Ukraine in 1900. The recipe was shared and enjoyed from generation to generation and finally written down more than 100 years later.
Lawrence shared it with me with the hope that we might be able to teach it in a future class in the Thrive Kitchen, and I hope we can! It’s an incredibly delicious and nutritious recipe — deep ruby red in color and earthy in flavor — and I would love to be able to share a family recipe from someone who is not only my patient but has attended a few of my classes. While the Thrive Kitchen’s main aim is to empower people with healthy cooking skills and to inspire delicious and more frequent home cooking, equally important is the sense of community we share at every single class. We might start out as strangers, but by the time we gather around the table after all the cooking is done to share food, nutrition information, advice, questions, and tips, everyone is relaxed and engaged. It’s my favorite day of every month.
Thank you, Lawrence, for your family’s delicious borscht recipe.
Note: This recipe can be halved.
Nutrition highlights: Beets are an excellent source of folate and a very good source of manganese, potassium, copper, dietary fiber, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin C, iron, and vitamin B6. They are rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, which help protect against heart disease, birth defects, and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.
Servings: 32
Prepare beets