This Sweet Potato Salad with an easy homemade dressing tastes as good as it looks. I love this rainbow of delicious veggies.
Roasted sweet potatoes come together with a homemade salad dressing for this beautiful salad recipe. It’s a creamy, sweet and sour dressing flavored with tahini, honey, and a hint of cumin, that clings beautifully to every bite of salad.
I’ve chosen a lot of colorful ingredients that work great with the taste and texture of the sweet potatoes, but you can easily adjust to what you have on hand.
Scroll down to read more about how it all comes together or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.
Ingredients
Pull together your favorite veggies to compliment the sweet potatoes. Since cooked sweet potatoes are soft, we’ve added a few things with different textures to add interesting and flavor. In my recipe I’ve used a combination of roasted beets, tomatoes, bell pepper, red onion, blueberries, and kale. But you can use as many or as few of the ingredients as you’d like. Just don’t skip the homemade dressing! The sweetness and tang plus the nutty tahini go so well with the sweet potatoes.
I love how the orange looks against the dark blue of blueberries and the vibrant reddish purple colors, which is why you’ll find red onion and beets in this salad. The flavors all really go well together too. A lot of playing with sweet and savory together here.
Want to switch up the ingredients? You could use some sliced radishes for a nice crunch instead of, or in addition to, the red onion. You could swap the pecans for walnuts or roasted pumpkin seeds. You could use a different kind of berry or even dried cranberries instead of the blueberries.
Using Kale For Salads
Kale, although super healthy, can be tough to chew and digest. To help with this, squeeze the kale leaves in your hands, rub them together, and give the kale a literal massage. Doing this will break some of the fibrous cell walls, which will make the kale more tender and easier to digest.
Not a fan of kale? Substitute spinach or your favorite salad greens mix instead for this roasted sweet potato salad.
How To Cook The Sweet Potatoes
You have a couple options for the sweet potatoes. If you like some nice caramelization, you’ll want to peel and dice the raw sweet potatoes and then roast the cubes. Preheat the oven to 425°F and roast on a baking sheet in a single layer for 30 minutes, tossing halfway through. They should be tender and lightly browned on the outside.
You could also cook the potatoes first, then peel and chop them after cooling down. The air fryer is great for this, especially if you don’t have a need to heat the whole oven. It does take longer when cooking whole sweet potatoes in the air fryer, around 45 minutes at 400°F, but the cooked potatoes are really easy to cut.
If you’re roasting the sweet potatoes (or beets) the same day you’re making the salad, chill them or at least bring them to room temperature before adding to the salad so that all of the ingredients are roughly the same temperature. This will prevent anything from wilting. You could also used canned beets if you don’t want to roast the beets yourself.
Homemade Honey Tahini Dressing
This salad dressing is really delicious and works so well with the sweet potatoes, so I strongly suggest you don’t skip it!
To make the Honey Tahini dressing, whisk together the honey, olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, tahini, garlic, shallot, cumin, and salt in a medium bowl, then set this aside. Want to keep this vegan? Substitute agave syrup for the honey.
The salad dressing can be made a day or two ahead of time, too. It is equally good used as a sandwich spread, a dip for homemade chicken nuggets, a dressing or dip for vegetables, or a glaze for baked chicken and fish. The recipe will make about a half cup, and it can be easily doubled.
What Is Tahini, Anyways?
Tahini is just like almond butter or sun nut butter, but with sesame seeds instead. It’s often sold in the ethnic food aisle in the grocery store, or sometimes with the other nut butters. Look for a brand that offers roasted and ground sesame for the best flavor. Like other natural nut and seed butters, the oil and ground seed will have separated after being packaged. You’ll want to give the tahini a good stir before using so that the oil and ground seed are thoroughly mixed.
Making And Serving Sweet Potato Salad
To make the salad, add the massaged kale to a large bowl, and then arrange the sweet potatoes and other vegetables on top. If you want a cool presentation, arrange piles in the color order of the rainbow. This also looks pretty when laid out in rows like a chopped salad.
Sprinkle chopped pecans over the top of the salad and drizzle a little of the dressing over everything. Serve immediately with more dressing on the side.
Make this sweet potato salad recipe a complete meal by adding a protein like grilled chicken, shrimp, black beans, or roasted chickpeas.
Podcast Episode: Making Colorful Sweet Potato Salad
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make this salad, along with some other great tips, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
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Sweet Potato Salad Recipe
This Sweet Potato Salad with an easy homemade dressing tastes as good as it looks. I love this rainbow of delicious veggies.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Mix
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp. honey
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tbsp. orange juice
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 Tbsp. minced shallot or onion
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 8 cups chopped, packed kale leaves
- 2 medium tomatoes, chopped
- 2 medium cooked sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 bell pepper, sliced
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 1/2 cup sliced red onion*
- 2 cups cooked cubed beets**
- 1 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- In a medium bowl whisk together honey, olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, tahini, garlic, shallot, cumin, and salt to make the dressing. Set aside.
- To a large bowl, add the kale. On top of that, add the tomato, sweet potato, bell pepper, blueberries, red onion, and beets.
- Top with chopped nuts.
- Drizzle with desired amount of honey tahini dressing, serve immediately.
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Notes
*For similar vibrant color but more crunch, use a cup of sliced radishes instead or in addition to the red onion.
**I’ve used an 8.8 ounce package of cooked beets from the produce department, and I have also used a 15 ounce can of sliced beets, drained and patted dry.
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