6 Growing Beets For Roasted Beet Chips That Old Farmers Swear By

You pull a batch of beet chips from the oven, and they’re a mixed bag. Some are perfectly crisp and sweet, while others are a bit soft, maybe even a little bitter. The secret isn’t just in the roasting time or the olive oil; it starts way back in the garden with the seed you planted. Growing beets specifically for chips means selecting for sugar, texture, and uniformity—qualities that turn a humble root vegetable into a genuinely addictive snack.

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Choosing the Right Beet for Perfect Roasted Chips

Not all beets are created equal when it comes to the dehydrating heat of an oven. The goal for a great chip is a perfect balance of natural sugars for caramelization, a firm texture that won’t turn to mush, and a low moisture content for crispiness. A beet bred for canning might be too watery, while one prized for its greens might have a less impressive root.

When you’re flipping through a seed catalog, look past the generic "beet" description. You’re hunting for varieties described as "sweet," "fine-grained," or "low in geosmin" (the compound that gives beets their earthy flavor). A round, uniform shape is also a major plus. It makes slicing consistent chips on a mandoline a simple task, ensuring they all cook at the same rate.

Think about the final product you want. Do you want a deeply colored, intensely beet-flavored chip? Or are you after something milder, sweeter, and less likely to stain your cutting board? The beauty of growing your own is that you can cultivate a specific experience, moving beyond the one-size-fits-all red beet found at the grocery store.

Detroit Dark Red: The Classic, High-Sugar Choice

If you’ve ever bought a beet, chances are it was a Detroit Dark Red or a close relative. This variety is the reliable, open-pollinated workhorse of the beet world for a reason. It’s dependable, grows well in a variety of soils, and delivers that quintessential, robust beet flavor.

For chip making, its biggest asset is its high sugar content. When thinly sliced and roasted, those sugars caramelize beautifully, creating a chip that is both sweet and deeply savory. The flesh is a uniform, deep crimson, which translates into a visually striking, dark-red chip. Its classic globe shape is also easy to handle and slice, giving you a good yield of usable rounds from each root.

The tradeoff is its potent, earthy flavor and its notorious ability to stain everything it touches. If you love that classic, dirt-undertone taste and don’t mind a temporarily purple kitchen, this beet is an unbeatable choice. It’s the standard for a reason, and it makes a fantastic, no-nonsense roasted chip.

Cylindra: Uniform Slices and a Milder Flavor

The Cylindra beet, sometimes sold as ‘Formanova’, immediately stands out for its shape. Instead of a round globe, it grows long and cylindrical, looking more like a fat, dark-red carrot. This unique form is its superpower when it comes to making chips.

The primary advantage is perfectly uniform slices. From the top of the root to the bottom, every slice you make will be roughly the same diameter. This solves the common problem of having tiny, overcooked chips from the tapered end of the beet and larger, undercooked ones from the middle. With Cylindra, every single chip roasts evenly, giving you a much more consistent batch.

Flavor-wise, Cylindra is noticeably milder and less earthy than Detroit Dark Red. It’s sweet, but in a more delicate way. This makes it an excellent choice for anyone who finds traditional beets a bit too intense. The uniform slices and approachable flavor make Cylindra a practical and crowd-pleasing option for chip making.

Chioggia: The Sweet, Eye-Catching Candy-Stripe Beet

The Chioggia beet is all about aesthetics and sweetness. When you slice it open raw, you’re greeted with stunning concentric rings of bright pink and white, earning it the nickname "candy-stripe beet." It’s an heirloom variety from Italy that brings a bit of artistry to the garden.

This beet is one of the sweetest varieties you can grow. It’s naturally low in geosmin, meaning it lacks almost all of the earthy flavor that can be polarizing for some eaters. When roasted, this sweetness concentrates into a chip that is almost candy-like, with a crisp, light texture.

Here’s the important tradeoff: the beautiful stripes will fade dramatically with heat. While they look incredible raw in salads, they mostly disappear during roasting, leaving you with a pale pink or light orange chip. You grow Chioggia for its exceptional sweetness and the joy of its raw beauty, not for a striped final product. If pure, non-earthy sweetness is your goal, this is your beet.

Golden Detroit: Sweet Flavor Without the Red Stain

For anyone who loves the taste of beets but dreads the inevitable clean-up, the Golden Detroit is the answer. As its name suggests, this beet has a beautiful, sunny-yellow to deep-orange flesh. It offers all the goodness of a beet without the potent red betalain pigment that stains hands, cutting boards, and clothes.

Golden beets are prized for their flavor, which is distinctly milder and often sweeter than their red counterparts. They have very little of that earthy undertone, leaning more into a sweet, almost fruity profile. Roasted into chips, they become wonderfully crisp and develop a lovely golden-brown color, looking more like a sweet potato chip.

This variety is fantastic for making mixed root vegetable chips. You can toss them with sliced parsnips, carrots, and potatoes without worrying about the entire batch turning pink. Their gentle flavor also complements other vegetables well, making them a versatile and mess-free choice for any chip enthusiast.

Bull’s Blood: Richly Sweet with Deepest Color

Bull’s Blood is an old heirloom variety that’s as dramatic as its name suggests. It’s primarily known for its stunning, deep burgundy leaves, which are a gourmet salad green in their own right. But the roots are a hidden gem for anyone seeking intense flavor and color.

The roots of Bull’s Blood are not always perfectly uniform, but they are packed with an incredibly rich, concentrated sweetness. The flesh is a dark, blood-red that’s even deeper than a Detroit Dark Red. When roasted, this produces chips that are almost black at the edges, with a complex, sugary flavor that is second to none.

The real advantage of growing Bull’s Blood on a small farm is its dual-purpose nature. You can harvest the young leaves for salads throughout the early growing season (they are tender and sweet), and then let the roots mature for a late-season chip harvest. It’s two excellent crops from a single planting, maximizing the productivity of your garden space.

Avalanche: The All-White, Earth-Free Sweet Beet

If the earthy flavor of beets is the one thing holding you back, Avalanche is the variety you need to grow. This is a modern, all-white beet that was specifically bred to have zero geosmin. The result is a root vegetable that is purely sweet and crisp, completely sidestepping the traditional beet flavor profile.

When you slice an Avalanche beet, the flesh is pure white and has a texture similar to a jicama or water chestnut. Roasted into chips, they don’t brown as deeply as other varieties, staying a pale, creamy color. The flavor is clean and sugary, making for a uniquely light and crunchy snack that will surprise even the most ardent beet-hater.

Think of Avalanche as a blank canvas. Its mild, sweet flavor makes it a perfect candidate for seasoning with smoked paprika, garlic powder, or rosemary. It delivers the satisfying crunch and sweetness of a beet chip without any of the polarizing earthiness, making it the ultimate gateway beet.

Harvesting Tips for the Best Chip-Making Beets

When you harvest your beets has a huge impact on their quality for chips. The common advice to wait until they are "tennis ball" size is often a mistake. For the best texture and highest sugar concentration, harvest them when they are smaller, somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a racquetball.

Larger, older beets can develop a woody, fibrous core that is unpleasant to eat and doesn’t crisp up well. Younger beets are more tender and their sugars haven’t yet been converted into tougher starches. Pull one up when it looks about ready and test it. If it’s sweet and tender, it’s time to harvest the rest of that size.

After pulling them, don’t cut the tops off. Instead, twist them off by hand, leaving about an inch of stem attached. This prevents the beet from "bleeding" its color and moisture, which helps preserve the flavor and texture until you’re ready to slice them. For the absolute best chips, use them within a day or two of harvest when their sugars are at their peak.

Ultimately, the perfect beet chip starts with the right seed. By moving beyond the generic red beet, you can cultivate a range of flavors, from the intensely sweet Bull’s Blood to the mild and uniform Cylindra. Don’t be afraid to plant a few different varieties in a single season; you’ll quickly discover which one makes the perfect, crispy snack for your taste.