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My favorite thing to eat for lunch is a salad. I love how a salad can take so many different forms.  This Roasted Sweet Potato salad is super yummy and filling. The combination of the crunchy lettuce, red onion and caramelised sweet potato is just delicious. What’s more, it’s easy to throw together first thing when you’re rushing to get out the door.
For me, the best time to roast my sweet potato is on a Sunday. The kid will be sitting at the kitchen bench doing his homework while I lazily prep this funny looking root vegetable then pop it in the oven.
I like to leave the skin on. This is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’m lazy. If I don’t have to do something I won’t. I just make sure I give the sweet potato a really good scrub under a running tap. Secondly, I like the texture the skin provides when it’s been roasted. So good.
Just remember you put them in the oven… The day I made the salad pictured, I got sidetracked helping the kid with his reader and overcooked those little beauties. I had to make a whole other batch. Luckily I was able to save a few for that day’s salad. Combined with the Tangy Dijon Dressing it came out alright. It happens.
The recipe for the Tangy Dijon Dressing comes from Cookie and Kate. The original recipe calls for a pinch of chilli flakes. I omitted the chilli flakes for my dressing but if you like an extra kick then go for it. Both the dressing and the sweet potatoes can be prepped the day/night before. This way, you can throw everything together in the morning. Couldn’t be easier!
A word of warning regarding the Tangy Dijon Dressing. It’s freaky delicious! This dressing will go with almost any lettuce based salad. What’s more, it’s incredibly easy to make using ingredients most of us have in the pantry. If you have an empty clean pesto jar lying around (you should, they really come in handy for storing dressings or nut butters), you simply create a lovely big batch of the dressing in the jar and store it in the fridge. The dressing will last up to five days like this. Which means you have a whole week’s worth of dressing to jazz up any salad.
Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Tangy Dijon Dressing
Serves 2-4
1 medium sweet potato (diced into 2cm cubes)
1 head of baby cos lettuce (also known as romaine lettuce)
1/4 small red onion (finely sliced)
1 small Lebanese cucumber (sliced into 1/2cm rounds)
1/2 medium carrot (julienne)
1/2 tbs pepitas to garnish
For the dressing
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs lemon juice + the rind of 1/2 a lemon
1-2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste.
Method
- First make your dressing. I like to do this step first because it gives all the flavours time to really meld together. In your clean glass jar, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, salt, and pepper. Pop the lid on the jar and give it a really good shake. Set aside.
- Pre-heat your oven to 200C fan-forced. Put your sweet potato cubes into a bowl, drizzle with some olive oil and toss to coat. Tip the sweet potatos onto a oven tray lined with baking paper and spread them out evenly. Season the cubes generously with salt and pepper. Put the tray in the oven and roast for around 20-30 minutes.
- Wash and drain your cos lettuce. Now you can either gently tear the leaves into bite-size pieces or slice them with a knife. Divide the lettuce up into 4 small salad bowls or 1 big bowl and top with the sliced onion, julienne carrots, and cucumber rounds.
- Once your sweet potato cubes are ready, let them cool slightly before scattering a couple of good hand fulls all over the big bowl. (If you decided to make 4 small bowls of salad, divide the roasted sweet potato evenly among them)
- Now sprinkle the pepitas on top of the salad and give the bottle of dressing another good shake. Put a spoon in the dressing bottle and bring to the table with the salads so people can add as much or little as they like.
- If you have any sweet potato cubes leftover, they will store in the fridge in an air-tight container for about 4 days.
