Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprout Salad

Our sweet potato salad combines warm, roasted sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and cranberries with a citrus vinaigrette, salty feta cheese, and tart pomegranate arils, creating a plateful of flavors that’s great on the side or on its own.

During the last 8 months, we’ve really experimented with our food choices. For years, we seemed to rotate through a menu of six or seven entrees. Sometimes we’d change a sauce, or a side dish. It was as though we had a list of three meats, a starch, and either broccoli, corn, or peas. We’d choose something from each column and bingo. Dinner is served.

Switching Things Up with a Salad

One thing we’ve discovered is that warm salads as side dishes, or even main dishes at times, are awesome. They usually come together pretty quickly, and their ingredients can be flexible to meet your needs. Swap out the pasta in our warm pasta salad, or go meatless. In most cases, our salads delicious at any temperature. Our chickpea salad can go from counter to table or stay in your fridge until you need it. This sweet potato salad tastes great particularly good served warm, but just as good eaten right from the fridge or room temperature.

This Christmas, my sister asked me to bring something for the family dinner. I figured I’d bring sweet potatoes, since I’m the only one in our house who actually likes them. With a typical recipe, there be a load of leftovers, and even I don’t want to eat them with every dinner for the next few nights. I’d seen a recipe for some roasted sweet potatoes with cranberries and pomegranate, and the Christmas invite would be the perfect chance to make it. Unfortunately, one of my sister’s friends was bringing her own sweet potato dish. I only discovered this after buying all the stuff I needed for mine, and now I was stuck with a bag of sweet potatoes and a damned pomegranate.

For the record though, that friend made a really, really good sweet potato dish.

The Tart’s Perfect Sweet Potato Salad

Much like the pasta salads I grew up with, I’m not a big fan of potato salads. We always made it the most basic way: potato and mayonnaise, with some salt and pepper to season it. I don’t enjoy the combination of cold and mushy potato and mayo, and I won’t touch it if the potato salad includes chopped veggies or egg. There’s too many textures in there that, when combined, completely turn me off of the dish.

With this sweet potato salad, I get to have a bunch of things that I really, really like to eat. Plus, they all have distinct flavors and textures that work well with one another. The sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts roast with the cranberries, absorbing a bit of the tart juice and caramelizing a little at the same time. Cold pomegranate arils provide a much-needed crunch (even if your kitchen might look like a killing floor after getting them out of the fruit). Topping the salad with a sprinkling of feta gives everything a nice saltiness, and a drizzle of the citrus vinaigrette adds some tang that works with everything.

This recipe will make two or three servings, depending on how large your sweet potatoes are, or how large your servings are. I’ve kept it in the fridge for up to 5 days. It’s fabulous when you get to mix the hot and cold parts and serve it like that, but it’s also tasty heated up as a quick lunch.

Have you given this recipe a try, or do you have an idea of what could be improved?  Leave us a comment below!  We’d love to hear from you!

– Tart & Beard

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Sweet Potato Salad with Feta and Brussels Sprouts

Course Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword Brussels sprouts, chickpeas, feta, salad, sweet potato

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 2

Ingredients

Sweet Potato Salad

• 2 sweet potatoes peeled
• 1/2 lb Brussels sprouts
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup cranberries fresh or frozen
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup feta cheese
• pomegranate arils
• chickpeas optional

Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette

• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• salt and pepper

Instructions

Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette

1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl or jar.  Whisk together.

   This will stay good in the fridge for a few days, but may need to come to room temperature before it can be used because it gets a bit chunky.  You can also microwave it for 10 seconds or so if needed.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.

2. Cut the peeled sweet potatoes into 1-inch cubes, and slice the Brussels sprouts in half (quarter them if they’re big).  Add both to a mixing bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle with oil, then toss to evenly combine.

3. Spread the potato, sprouts, and cranberries in a single layer on the baking sheet and roast for 25-30 mins, or until the potatoes are tender.  Remove from the oven and return to the mixing bowl.  

4. Add 1-2 tbsps of the feta and 2 tbsps of the vinaigrette to the potatoes and sprouts, season with salt and pepper to taste, and toss to combine.  Serve with pomegranate arils, and drizzle with a little more dressing or add more feta if desired.  
   

   Note:  we added some spicy roasted chickpeas to this.  We haven’t included a recipe because the Tart just improvised it.

The Tart

The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things.  She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.