Beets and berries mingle with goat cheese in a stunning spring salad

(Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post/food styling by Gina Nistico for The Washington Post)

Beets can be unruly in recipes, their dark crimson juices easily overtaking the other colors on the plate. This salad both unleashes and lassos that tendency.

Initially, it capitalizes on those colorful juices by making them part of the dressing. When wedges of roasted beets (which you can either roast yourself or buy pre-roasted) are tossed with a tangy, shallot-spiked vinaigrette, their juices enter the fold, adding an earthy-sweet flavor and royal hue to the dressing. Raspberries are tossed in for a measure of color-compatible, fresh fruitiness and to give the salad a spring vibe. A sprinkle of fresh tarragon adds a fragrant, anise dimension.

That mixture is then spooned onto large cuplike lettuce leaves where it is mostly contained, with just some of the luscious juices spilling over. The contrast of the green leaves and the dark red beet-raspberry mixture is simply stunning and is punctuated further with crumbles of white goat cheese, which also add a creamy richness to the plate.

It’s a gorgeous and unique salad that gives beets their rightful place, at the center of an alluring start to a spring meal.

Get the recipe: Roasted Beet and Raspberry Salad With Goat Cheese