This summer let’s go healthy and replace white potatoes with healthy sweet potatoes in our diet! And to get you started on this nutritious journey Foodism brings for you a lip-smacking roasted sweet potato salad recipe - with spinach, creamy avocado chunks, red onion and dried cranberries - to lend a refreshing hue to your picnics and barbeques.

Summers are the perfect time to give a free rein to our passion for salads. Light on the stomach, easy to digest, fresh from the farm per se and showcasing all the summer veggie and herb splendours … salads come packed with a lot of pluses.

If you are one of those foodies who’s all game for cookouts, barbeques, picnics, and potlucks et al then we’ve brought for you a salad which is the perfect mix of taste and health and the bonus here is the manageable preparation time. Which salad? Well, it goes by a couple of names folks - roasted sweet potato salad and roast kumara salad for example. But like they say ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ so what’s there in a name!

On a serious note unlike those sinfully calorie-loaded Watergate salads and strawberry pretzel salads which to be honest are simply desserts with the word salad in their name; this roasted sweet potato salad scores high on the healthy food quotient.

An upgraded remake of the traditional potato salad, our version is choc-a-bloc with veggies (spinach, red onion and avocado), dried cranberries for a sweet touch and there’s no elaborate dressing — just lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. All this makes it a sweet and zesty salad.

WHY ROASTED SWEET POTATOES?

We’ll let you into a secret … anything with roasted sweet potatoes is bound to be delicious! Because - as some of us are well aware - roasting veggies brings to the fore their natural sweetness. And to top this, nutrient-rich sweet potatoes are replete with fibre, B vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, thiamine and zinc. Their orange and purple varieties are rich in antioxidants that help protect the body from free radicals.

Studies claim that sweet potatoes pack in a lot of pluses as they help with – cancer, diabetes, heart disease, macular degeneration, obesity et al. Additionally, they are touted to be good for your gut and memory alongside boosting your immunity

SWEET POTATO SALAD RECIPE

Total Time

Preparation - 10 Minutes

Cooking - 30 Minutes

Total – 40 Minutes

Servings

Six

Ingredients

• Sweet potatoes – 10 Cups (about three large ones chopped evenly into bite-size chunks)
• Sea salt – One-and-a-half Teaspoon
• Red onion – Half Cup (chopped very small)
• Lemon juice – Two Tablespoons
• Hemp seeds – One-Two Tablespoon (optional)
• Dried cranberries – One-Third Cup
• Black pepper – As per taste (ground)
• Baby spinach – 115 Grams (chopped)
• Avocado or olive oil – One Tablespoon
• Avocado – One (chopped in chunks)
• Apple cider vinegar – Two Tablespoons

The Process

 

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Keep the sweet potato chunks in a large bowl and toss with oil and sea salt. Bake for 30 minutes or until cooked through – do remember to flip them once. Remove the bowl from the oven and let the potato chunks cool.
2. While the potatoes are roasting, put the chopped spinach, onion, dried cranberries, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice in a large bowl. Then add the cooled sweet potato chunks to the bowl and stir to mix. Gently stir in avocado and sea salt; and add ground pepper as per taste. Sprinkle hemp seeds (if using). 
3. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve

NB

If needed, add a splash of extra lemon juice before serving

Nutrition Facts

Serving: 1/6 of the recipe (without hemp seeds) 

• Calories: 292kcal 
• Carbohydrates: 57g 
• Protein: 5g 
• Fat: 6g (Saturated Fat: 1g and Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g) 
• Sodium: 730mg 
• Fibber: 9g 
• Sugar: 16g

SERVING AND STORING CUES

• Served as a side dish … but for the health-conscious, it works as the main dish too!
• Tastes best when served cold or at room temp
• Perfect for barbeques, potlucks and parties
• Add the avocado just before serving
• This salad is better served right away

TIME SAVER TIP

In case you want to prepare this salad ahead of time, you can –

• Roast the sweet potatoes and chop all the veggies up to a day in advance
• Do let the sweet potatoes cool after roasting them; and you can then store them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make the salad 

So the next time you plan a picnic do remember to add roast sweet potato salad along with all those hamburgers, devilled eggs, sandwiches, theplas, dhoklas, handva et al. And hey…if you follow our sweet potato salad recipe then don’t forget to do carry a larger quantity with you as it’s going to be eagerly devoured by all!