Winter Sweet Potato Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

This is the perfect salad for a chilly winter day, which is what we have here in Cali. Yes..it’s kinda rare. The night before we had something on the heavier side so I was yearning for a crisp salad. Yes…yearning. Of course I didn’t want to have a cold summery salad  which would make me want to eat french fries after, but still needed something that “stuck to the ribs”, ya feel me?

I’ve had warm/cold salads before at restaurants and I absolutely love them. Not only are the temperatures different, obviously, but roasting and grilling changes the texture and concentrates the flavors of ingredients. I had 1 sweet potato leftover and a half box of gorgeous sweet cherry tomatoes as well as a bag of winter greens mix from a Bloggy party I went to that I’ve been dieing to use. I’ve never seen a salad bag with so much variety. It had kale, mustard greens, beet greens and some other stuff too. Not only did i get a bag of these greens, but met the people from Cut n Greens as well. They told us about their kale farm and I’m actually hoping to visit there one day…wouldn’t that be great?

These greens were amazing. They were crisp and hearty and I loved feeling the different textures. To keep with the winter theme, I also had some blood oranges which are perfectly in season now and made a simple, homemade blood orange vinaigrette. The combination of the sweet-citrus vinaigrette was perfect for the hearty greens. The sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes caramelized and I couldn’t stop snacking on them before making the salad. Seriously…just awesome. I added a touch of blue cheese, which is salty and cut through the sweetness. The entire salad was just more amazing than I thought and hit the spot on this chilly (Cali) winter day.

Method:

1) On a foil lined baking sheet, add sweet potatoes, onions and cherry tomatoes. Toss with a good drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes until everything begins to caramelize.

2) To make the vinaigrette, add all ingredients to a mason jar and shake for a few seconds.

3) Toss 2Tb of vinaigrette with the salad greens in a bowl and place on plate. Top with roasted sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes and onions. * Store leftover vinaigrette in a small container and store in fridge. You will have extra.

4) Top salad with crumbled blue cheese.

*You can opt out of this if you want the salad vegan.

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Winter Sweet Potato Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Author: Samantha Ferraro

Ingredients

Salad

• 2 cups winter greens mix kale, mustard greens, spinach, beet greens
• 1 sweet potato peeled and cut into 1 in cubes
• 1/4 onion sliced
• 1/2 lb cherry tomatoes
• 1 oz blue cheese crumbled
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil for drizzling

Blood Orange Vinaigrette

• 1 blood orange juiced
• 2 tangerines or 1 orange, juiced and zest
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 Tb Dijon mustard
• 1 Tb honey
• 2 Tb rice wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• On a foil lined baking sheet, add sweet potatoes, onions and cherry tomatoes. Toss with a good drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes until everything begins to caramelize.
• To make the vinaigrette, add all ingredients to a mason jar and shake for a few seconds.
• Toss 2Tb of vinaigrette with the salad greens in a bowl and place on plate. Top with roasted sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes and onions.
• * Store leftover vinaigrette in a small container and store in fridge. You will have extra.
• Top salad with crumbled blue cheese.
• *You can opt out of this if you want the salad vegan.