Roasted Sweet Potato & Red Onion Salad with Maple-Dijon Dressing

Say hello to healthiness. After posting 3 cookie recipes last week, I felt like I had to at least start off the week responsibly. Luckily you won’t miss the butter and sugar at all! This sweet and savory easy, seasonal salad is full of flavor and color and good for you too. Happy Monday!

I pretty much eat a salad every day but it’s very formulaic—lettuce, dried cranberries, roasted slivered almonds, grated Parmesan and olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dress it. It’s quick and delicious and requires no thought but sometimes it gets a little ho-hum. And now more than ever, with all of the tempting treats around, I feel that I have to counterbalance with salad even more—thus, this different and interesting, but still easy, spin!

I love, love, love adding hot veggies to cold salad—especially when they’re two of my favorites: sweet potato and red onion!

They’re a snap to prepare and get that wonderful, sweet caramelization! YUM!

Then, a little bit of feta and some craisins for more texture and flavor and rounding everything out, a sweet and savory maple-dijon dressing that just takes a minute or two to whip up and is a really nice zesty change of pace!

You can totally serve this as a side dish but I’m happy with it as my main course—it’s plenty filling but not so heavy that you can’t manage a cookie or two for dessert (sigh, there’s just no resisting during the holiday season!!)

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Roasted Sweet Potato & Red Onion Salad with Maple-Dijon Dressing

Makes 5-6 servings as a side salad—serves 3 as a main course

Prep Time for roasted veggies: 40 minutes; Prep Time for dressing: 5 minutes; Assembly Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

For the Roasted Veggies

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

• 1 large red onion, cut into half and sliced into several wedges

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• Kosher salt and black pepper

For the Maple-Dijon dressing

• 1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

• 1 ½ teaspoons maple syrup

• Pinch of kosher salt and black pepper

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

For the Salad

• 5 ounce box of baby lettuce (or your favorite kind)

• Generous handful dried cranberries

• Generous handful crumbled feta cheese

The Recipe

1. For the Roasted Veggies: Preheat oven to 450ºF and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the potatoes and onion on it and toss with the oil, salt and pepper, making sure all the veggies get full coated.

2. Bake for about 40 minutes, stirring once or twice throughout the process, until veggies are starting to get charred and caramelized.

3. For the Dressing: Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together well. Set aside.

4. To make the Salad: Place the greens in a large bowl, along with the cranberries and feta. Toss well with some of the dressing and top with the hot or warm roasted veggies. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Note: Recipe adapted from The Minimalist Kitchen by Melissa Coleman. I tinkered with this a lot—cut the croutons, pepitas, thyme, sage, used more roasted veggies and subbed in baby lettuce. The ingredients are just a guide—make it your own—it would be great topped with all sorts of different roasted veggies.