Sheet Pan Chickpeas with Beets and Anchovy Butter

Beets bleed. Cut them and they stain the cutting board, the knife, your fingertips if you’re not careful, and on a sheet pan, that same deep magenta works its way outward into everything around it — creeping along the edges of chickpeas until half the pan has gone the color of a bruise. It’s not subtle, and it’s not meant to be. Underneath that color, something else is happening: butter, melted with mashed anchovy fillets until they disappear entirely into it, gets brushed over everything just before it goes into the oven, turning what could be a plain vegetable side into something with real backbone.

Sheet pan chickpeas with beets and anchovy butter is not a dish that announces its ingredients quietly. The beets stain, the anchovies disappear but leave their savor behind, and the chickpeas — usually background players in a dish like this — end up crisped and browned enough to be the thing you reach for first.

What Makes It Worth Your Time

Anchovies get a bad reputation from people who’ve only encountered them whole, salty, and staring back from a pizza. Melted into butter and roasted into a pan of vegetables, they vanish as a recognizable ingredient and leave behind something closer to what a splash of fish sauce does for a stir-fry — an umami backbone that makes everything around it taste more fully realized, without anyone at the table necessarily identifying why.

This is also a genuinely efficient way to get a full vegetable side onto the table with one pan and about ten minutes of actual work. Beets take real time to roast through, and canned chickpeas need almost none, so this recipe uses that gap deliberately — starting the beets alone, then adding the chickpeas partway through so both finish at the same time, evenly cooked rather than one overdone and the other barely warmed.

What You’ll Need

• 1.5 lbs (680g) beets, peeled and cut into 1-inch wedges — a mix of red and golden beets keeps the color from taking over the entire pan, though all red beets work fine if that’s what you have
• 2 cans (15 oz / 425g each) chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and patted very dry — the drier they go into the oven, the better they crisp; skip this step and you’ll end up steaming them instead
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 4 anchovy fillets, finely minced or mashed into a paste — if the idea of anchovies is genuinely off the table, a teaspoon of white miso paste stirred into the butter gets you a similar savory depth, though the flavor lands rounder and less briny
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Salt and black pepper
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup (10g) fresh parsley or dill, roughly chopped, for finishing
• Crumbled feta, for serving (optional)

Making It

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Toss the beet wedges with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, a good pinch of salt, and a few cracks of black pepper. Spread them across a large rimmed sheet pan in a single layer — crowd them and they’ll steam in their own liquid instead of catching color at the edges. Roast for 20 minutes.
2. While the beets get their head start, mash the softened butter and minced anchovy together in a small bowl until the anchovy has broken down completely and disappeared into the butter, leaving no visible pieces. Stir in the minced garlic and smoked paprika. The mixture should smell savory and faintly oceanic, not sharp or fishy — that briny edge softens considerably once it hits the heat of the oven.
3. Toss the well-dried chickpeas with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt.
4. After the beets have had their 20 minutes, pull the pan and check them — they should be just beginning to soften at the edges but not fully tender yet. Add the chickpeas to the pan, spreading everything back into an even layer. Dot the anchovy butter in small spoonfuls across the pan, distributing it as evenly as you can rather than pooling it in one spot.
5. Return to the oven and roast for another 18 to 20 minutes, until the beets are fork-tender all the way through and the chickpeas have turned deeply golden and audibly crisp — give the pan a shake around the 10-minute mark to help the anchovy butter coat everything evenly as it melts and the beets release a little more color into the chickpeas around them.
6. Pull the pan once the chickpeas look properly crackled at the edges, not just browned but genuinely crisp, the kind of texture that holds up rather than going soft the moment they cool.
7. Finish immediately with lemon zest, a generous squeeze of lemon juice, and the chopped parsley or dill, tossing gently right on the pan. Scatter with crumbled feta if using, and serve while the chickpeas are still audibly crackling.

The Details That Separate Good from Great

Dry the chickpeas properly before they go anywhere near the oven. This is the step people skip, and it’s the difference between chickpeas that crisp and chickpeas that just sit there, pale and soft, absorbing whatever moisture is already in the pan. A few minutes rolling them in a clean kitchen towel does more work than any amount of extra roasting time afterward.

Add the chickpeas partway through rather than at the start. Beets simply take longer, and if both go in together, you’re choosing between undercooked beets and burnt chickpeas. Staggering the two lets each hit doneness on its own schedule instead of compromising on both.

Distribute the anchovy butter in small dots across the whole pan rather than one large spoonful in the center. Melted butter doesn’t travel as far or as evenly as you’d think in a hot oven — spreading it out from the start means every piece gets a share instead of just the ones closest to where it landed.

Where It Goes Wrong

The most common failure is soggy, pale chickpeas, and it almost always comes down to moisture — either they weren’t dried well enough after draining, or they were crowded too tightly on the pan and steamed instead of roasted. Give them real space and a genuine towel-drying before they ever touch the oil.

The second failure is beets that stay tough at the center while the chickpeas are already crisp and starting to burn. This happens when the beet wedges are cut too large or too irregular — some pieces cook through while thicker ones lag behind. Aim for uniform 1-inch pieces so the whole batch finishes together.

And don’t skip mashing the anchovy fully into the butter before it goes anywhere near the pan. Whole or roughly chopped pieces left in the butter will concentrate in random spots rather than distributing their flavor evenly, leaving some bites with an unexpectedly strong, salty punch and others with none at all.

Ways to Make It Your Own

Swap half the beets for carrots, cut to a similar size — they roast on nearly the same timeline and bring a sweeter counterpoint to the beets’ earthier flavor, without changing anything else about the method. A pinch of chili flakes stirred into the anchovy butter alongside the garlic adds a low, steady heat that plays well against the richness of the butter and the sweetness of the roasted beets.

For something with more crunch, a scattering of toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds added in the last five minutes of roasting brings texture that neither the chickpeas nor the beets can offer on their own.

Putting It on the Table

This works well as a hearty vegetarian main on its own, especially with the feta and a piece of crusty bread to catch whatever anchovy butter is left on the pan. It also holds up as a side next to roasted or grilled chicken, where the savory depth from the anchovy complements rather than competes with a simply seasoned protein.

Serve it warm, straight from the pan if you can — the chickpeas lose some of their crackle as they sit and cool, so there’s a real reason not to let this one wait around before it hits the table.

Keeping and Reheating

Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. The beets hold their texture well, but the chickpeas will soften noticeably as they sit, absorbing moisture from the beets alongside them.

Reheat in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 8 to 10 minutes to bring some crispness back to the chickpeas — spreading everything back out on a sheet pan rather than piling it into a bowl helps recreate the original texture. The microwave will heat it through fine but won’t do anything to restore the crackle that makes this dish worth eating in the first place.

Approximate Nutrition Per Serving

Values below are estimates for informational purposes only and will vary based on specific ingredients and portion sizes.

Closing

There’s something honest about a dish that stains the pan the way this one does — no pretending, no hiding what went into it. The anchovy butter works the same way, quietly, insisting on flavor without ever asking for credit. Make this once and you’ll understand why the ingredients that disappear are sometimes doing the most work.