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This borsch is packed with veggies and beats and is much faster to make than the classic borscht from 2010 and the even the simplified borsch that we posted last year. It’s also just as tasty (although the Mr. likes this version best).
My sister Tanya was excited to share this with me and I’m so glad she did. It’s brilliant and takes about 30 minutes to make (no that’s not a typo! 30 minutes!!).
There are 5 superfoods in this borsch: quinoa, beets, kale, onion (did you know onion was a superfood?), and beet greens (the greens from the stock of the beets). If you can’t find the beets with stems on; no worries, just use a little more kale. What makes these superfoods, you ask?
1. Quinoa: coined the “supergrain.” Quinoa has more protein than any other grain. This is our favorite lately. We cook it in our rice maker just like we would rice. We buy the organic quinoa at Costco; $10 for a large bag.
2. Kale, like other greens, has awesome nutritional benefits.
3. Beets: buy them with the greens intact which keep the beets fresh longer.
4. Beet Greens: One of the top 10 potassium foods! P.S. Organic beets tend to have the greens attached. Fred Meyer has good prices on organic beets. Mom’s garden has the best prices on organic beets. 😀
5. Onion: It might make you cry, but it helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure. It can also prevent cancer.
I’m totally watching a food documentary as I type this post. It makes me so glad that I made this borsch today and poured myself a bowl of superfood. I hope you love it like we do. My husband and son both approved!
Ingredients for Superfood Red Borsch:
12 cups reduced sodium chicken broth ( beef or veggie broth is ok)
1 medium or 1/2 large onion, peeled and cut in half (ends removed)
3 medium potatoes, sliced
1/4 cup quinoa
3 medium beets, peeled and grated
2 good handfuls of chopped kale leaves
2 bay leaves
3/4 cup sliced carrots
1 Tbsp Mrs. Dash
3 Tbsp ketchup
1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
S&P to taste
How to Make Superfood Red Borsch:
1. Fill a large soup pot with 12 cups broth and place over medium/high heat (or use 12 cups water and 4 Tbsp Reduced Sodium Better than Bouillon paste; that’s what I use). Toss in the halved onion.
2. Bring to a simmer, then add the chopped potatoes, quinoa and carrots. Let cook 5 minutes.
3. Add grated beets (a food processor with a grater attachment makes this step a breeze and keeps fingers from turning purple), toss in a couple bay leaves, 2 large handfuls of chopped kale and the beet greens if you are using them. Stir to combine. Bring to a light boil and continue to cook uncovered 20 minutes. Your veggies should be soft when done. Discard the cooked onion halves if desired (you get all the onion flavor and people who don’t like onion won’t be bothered by it!)
4. Add 1/2 Tbsp Lemon juice, 1 Tbsp Mrs Dash (or your favorite seasoning) and 3 Tbsp ketchup. Bring back to a boil and season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste (I used 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper and 1 tsp sea salt. Serve with Sour cream or mayo 🙂
Easy Superfood Borsch Recipe

Ingredients
- 12 cups reduced sodium chicken broth, beef or veggie broth is ok
- 1 medium or 1/2 large onion, peeled and cut in half (ends removed)
- 3 medium potatoes, sliced
- 1/4 cup quinoa
- 3 medium beets, peeled and grated
- 2 good handfuls of chopped kale leaves
- 2 bay leaves
- 3/4 cup sliced carrots
- 1 Tbsp Mrs. Dash
- 3 Tbsp ketchup
- 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
- S&P to taste
Instructions
- Fill a large soup pot with 12 cups broth and place over medium/high heat (or use 12 cups water and 4 Tbsp Reduced Sodium Better than Bouillon paste; that's what I use). Toss in the halved onion.
- Bring to a simmer, then add the chopped potatoes, quinoa and carrots. Let cook 5 minutes.
- Add grated beets, toss in a couple bay leaves, 2 large handfuls of chopped kale and the beet greens if you are using them. Stir to combine. Bring to a light boil and continue to cook uncovered 20 minutes. Your veggies should be soft when done. Discard the cooked onion halves if desired.
- Add 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp Mrs Dash (or your favorite seasoning) and 3 Tbsp ketchup. Bring back to a boil and season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste (I used 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper and 1 tsp sea salt. Serve with Sour cream or mayo 🙂
Made this for dinner last night. I added meat to mine. Super delicious!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! 🙂
I cannot praise this recipe enough! Husband and I are concentrating on eating healthy and it’s amazingly delicious and healthy! Husband was at first disappointed that I made borsch that.. Wasn’t borsch lol but totally love it! Any advice on when to add meat if we want some? 🙊
I’m so happy you and your husband loved it! 🙂 If adding meat, you can follow step 1 from my borscht with meat recipe: https://natashaskitchen.com/2014/02/08/borscht-recipe-with-meat/. Chicken thighs would work well also and the thighs would only need to cook about 20 minutes (as in this recipe:https://natashaskitchen.com/2015/03/24/easy-chicken-noodle-soup-recipe/). I hope that helps! 🙂
Oh, adding quinoa is a great idea, thank you!
My mother in law makes a vegan borscht for me 🙂
It is totally great without the meat (although I am no where near vegan ;)). I love a good excuse to use more quinoa.
Love this clean tasting easy to make borscht. Do you by any chance have a recipe for a beet mushroom borscht?
I’m so glad you like the recipe! Thank you 🙂 I don’t have a recipe for a mushroom borscht yet, but that sure sounds good! We’ve put mushrooms into borscht before but I haven’t made a specific mushroom one. Sounds yummy!
This was so good. Left out the potatoes and added cabbage & celery. Cannot wait to make it again. Thanks!
I’m so happy you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for the great review! 🙂
We LOVE this version of borsch, thank you Natasha for it tremendously!!! We love how great it tastes and how great we feel afterwards! I make it like at least once a week 🙂 GOD BLESS YOU NATASHA
That is music to my ears :). I’m so happy you enjoy it! God bless you to Anya 🙂
I’m Ukrainian and I tried this recipe. Pretty good except you must add a tablespoon of fresh chopped dill at the end. 🙂
Dill would be a very yummy add-in! P.S. Great etsy shop! 🙂
I was looking for something healthy to make and this was so easy and turned out to be delicious! The kale and quinoa work so well. I love this variation on an old favorite. Thank you!
That is music to my ears 🙂 I’m so happy you loved it 🙂
Mmm… reminded me the one we made in the Spring time with sorrel!
I LOVE sorrel borscht. Yum! You know you can freeze chopped sorrel and make it during winter 🙂 eh? eh? 😉
The borscht came out very well- thank you so much!
Thank you for the good report :).
Yah….I am so glad to find this recipe, I only heard from my friend that their is Borsch with kale and quinoa… I can’t wait to try this Borsch.
It’s the easy and healthier version 🙂 I hope you LOVE it!
This soup is so yummy I made it like 5 times already!! Thanks!
That’s awesome! It’s one of our faves now too. It’s so easy compared to the original borsch. 🙂
What’s the 1/2 tbsp of lemon for?
Ohh sorry. I added it to step 4. Thanks for asking!!!
Is the ketchup necessary or what could I substitute it for?
You can omit it. Tomato sauce or a little less tomato paste works well too. 🙂
made this borsch and my husband loved it!!! quick question, after the borsch is done do you take the onion out? i am by no means an onion fan, and it just floating there in the borsch kind of does not do it for me lol
Yes, take the onion out :).
Hi Natasha,
My grandmother makes something that she calls a green borscht. I’m planning on asking her for the recipe but the thing is she always says she doesn’t follow a recipe and just adds a “little bit of this and a little bit of that”…which isn’t very helpful. I was wondering if you have heard of a green borscht and if so, if you could post a recipe? I think she adds sour cream (not as a topping but into the soup), some sort of green salad that isn’t kale or spinach (my Russian isn’t so great), potatoes, some cabbage, and not sure if there’s anything else except for herbs.
Thanks!!
I know exactly what you are talking about and I already have the recipe posted here: https://natashaskitchen.com/2011/04/26/shchavel-borscht-sorrel-soup/ The green leaves you are referring to are sorrel. 🙂
Yay!! Thanks so much! It’s exactly that 🙂 I think she adds beans instead of meat since I was a vegetarian for so long and still prefer the vegetarian version! Will try to make it once I’m back in the US! 🙂
Ok thank u for promp response ure awesome, love u r blog. I tell everyone about it.:) will have to try this recipe soon.
This looks tasty. Interesting u don’t have any kind of meat in ur borsch recipes. My mom always made it with pork. How would I add meat to this if I wanted to? Very curious
Add meat at the very beginning to give it time to become tender. You want to cook it by itself for 15-30 min. Make sure to skim off any impurities that rise to the top. If you use meat, you really don’t need any chicken broth since the meat will flavor the borscht.
hello Natasha,
i made the soup based on this recipe a few times and loved it! my mom, though, does not like kyle and asked for the borscht with cabbage. Do you think i can just substitute cabbage for kyle in this recipe? i really like the simplicity of it and do not want to saute anything upfront like it is called for in other recipies you posted. would appreciate your thoughts on what i need to do to be able to sub cabbage for kyle in this recipe! thanks in advance.
Just add 1/2 head of cabbage, thinly chopped in place of kyle :).
thanks a lot for the super quick response! and thank you for these wonderful recepies!
Nelli
I am grateful to have found this borscht. I made it tonight and all 5 children and my husband and I loved it! Very hearty and delicious. Thank you for sharing. Funny to eat soup in the summer but it was a cool day in Canada today so why not? 🙂
I’m glad your family enjoyed it. You kind of made me hungry for some borscht :).
Thanks, than that’s what I’ll probably go with. It’s kind of expensive, but they’ve got great lifetime warranty on the knifes.
By the way, I made the superfood borscht, and even my picky husband liked it. He said it was different, but a good kind of different. He thinks that eating it cold won’t be a bad idea either, since it doesn’t have any fat it it (besides the bullion that is). Only it took me about 45 mins to make it, but that still beats the regular version of borscht 🙂 (I did have to use a manual box grater for the beets because I was making it at night, and didn’t want to wake the kids, maybe that’s why it took me longer, lol)
It is a chore to grate them by hand and your finger end up very colorful unless you used gloves 🙂 I’m so glad you liked it. That is a good idea to try it cold. It wouldn’t have any scum floating on top.