I had a similar salad in Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in Las Vegas where he used pistachios. I will use them when I make this again. I roasted the beets, adding in some oil and balsamic vinegar, as described by previous reviewers (thank you!). I had only fresh baby spinach, and that was a perfect green for this. Finally, I had only fresh orange juice, so I boiled it down for the dressing and it was perfect. Many raves for this salad, I will certainly serve it again.

overall was a very good and tasty recipe. i modified it a little bit by not using the maple syrup and the frozen orange juice (good luck finding one in the uk!) and serving the beet roots warm. i definitely would make it again.

The flavor combination was good, and I loved the idea of using syrup to candy the nuts. We roasted the beets as others suggested, so in the end it was a bit more time consuming than I like for a salad (I could buy canned but won't as we shoot for maximum nutrient value in our food). Next time I'll add the onion as suggested by other reviewers and marinate and chill the beets before serving.

FABULOUS recipe!!! I now have a new favorite salad! Thanks:) Substituted the dressing which I am sure would have been very good with my own because I am a GoodSeasons Italian Dressing fanatic; I added the orange juice where GoodSeasons calls for water. YUMMY!

Simple, very good. Cooking the beets might be more trouble than it's worth, next time I'm going to try canned beets. I use other sorts of nuts rather than almonds, and I used honey-roasted nuts and skipped the whole syrup step. Obviously I'm after a very quick and easy version of this... I make a big batch and keep the dressing separate, so I can eat several meals from it during the week.

So yummy! First time making a beet salad and I will make it again and again. A real crowd pleaser!

Dressing is very tasty. I opted to use seasame oil, some herbed goat cheese and I candied sliced almonds instead of walnuts

Wow we love this recipe! The salad dressing is so simple, yet so delicious. Everything complements each other wonderfully...the tang of the dressing, the sweetness of the walnuts, and the goat cheese to bring it all together. LOVE THIS!

Absolutely delicious! I made it using organic candy-stripe beets (slightly milder than traditional beets) and fresh spinach leaves and it was a perfect vegetarian main course for two people. I substituted feta for the goat cheese, and used lemon juice in the dressing instead of orange-juice concentrate but followed the rest of the recipe exactly. The candied walnuts were so easy, and a big hit!

Loved it. So easy. The dressing was a bit vinegary for me, but other than I thought it was great.

Delicious and easy!

UPDATE: I love, love this salad. For the beets I like to roast them (as you would a potato-1 hour @ 450, wrapped whole in foil) then cubed marinated overnight in vinegar (balsalmic or red wine). I also sub feta for the goat cheese. 9/15/2007:Whenever I go to Cheesecake Factory this is the salad I order. Thank you so much for this recipe (its going to save me so much $ to make it at home). The only changes I would make is to substitute pecans for the walnuts and add some roasted asparagus spears.

This salad was a big hit at my house, I cooked it as part of the meal for mothers day and my dad said it was his favourite part "tastes like something you'd find in a high class restaurant" he said. The dressing was very tasty also! Definitely will make again :)

Fairly good, but too much work for something that is only "fairly good". If I make this a next time, I will definitely buy cooked beets, and maybe add some onion as others have suggested. I had high hopes because I love all the ingredients but in the end, it just didn't come together to be a 5-star recipe for me.

OMG!!! I've been using All Recipes for about 5 years and this is the first time I've made time to rate a recipe. Stupendous!!! I've always detested beets but this was excellent. I wanted to skip dinner and just stick to the salad. I prepared enough of everything to last all week including the carmelized nuts which should last w/out a problem. A must try.

Very, very nice recipe - my girlfriend loves beets and goat cheese! Didn't change the recipe except for using 'bagged' salad. Tasty, delicious - will do again.

My fav salad of all time... And I don't even like beets! I RAVE about this salad to my friends and family and encourage them to give it a whirl. Use fresh beats! Similarly to how I feel about the importance of using fresh pumpkin in pumpkin pie, fresh beets make all the difference. If you want to save yourself some time, Trader Joe's has great prices on candied walnuts. I don't bother with making my own. I also prefer to use arugala as I feel it gives a nice texture. And if I have left over arugala, goat cheese and dressing I sub peeled grapefruit for the beets for a super delicious twist on this recipe.