Maple Roasted Sweet Potato and Pomegranate Spinach Salad
Are you tasked with bringing the salad to the potluck or family holiday get together this year? Well this one is easy, healthy and delicious. The colors are rich and so are the flavors. Sweet, savory and tangy, this one has it all. You can make all the components ahead of time and assemble when you are ready to serve. This time of year everyone can use a little salad on their plate. This one would also pair perfectly with some grilled fish or chicken as a healthy and balanced dinner.
Ingredients:
Large Sweet Potato- pealed and cubed into 1/2 inch pieces
Chopped pecans
Parmesan cheese- prefer a block so you can shave it into the salad
Pomegranate (the seeds from one pomegranate or about a 1/2 cups of seeds if you purchase already seeded)
Baby Spinach- about 1/2 lb
Olive oil
Maple Syrup
salt and pepper
For the Dressing:
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 olive oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
pinch salt
Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 380 F. Prepare the sweet potato. Toss it on a baking sheet with few tbsp olive oil and pinch of salt and fresh ground pepper. Roast for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and drizzle over 2 tbsps of maple syrup tossing to coat. Roast for another 5 minutes then allow the sweet potato to cool while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Assemble all the ingredients for then dressing into a jar with lid or use a small bowl. Whisk until combined or place the lid on the jar and shake to combine.
In a large bowl or serving platter toss the spinach, pomegranate and pecans in about half the dressing. Then arrange the sweet potato over the top of the dressed spinach and use a vegetable peeler to shave the parmesan over the top. You could toss it all together but I like the way it looks when the sweet potato and cheese are arranged on top and it means as you serve the salad, the cheese will not break apart and everyone can get some large shavings of parmesan.
Notes on seeding a Pomegranate:
I like to trim off the ends of the pomegranate, then holding it submerged in a bowl of water, break it apart and peel the seeds out using your hands. This keeps it from making a mess and the seeds sink to the bottom making it easier to scoop the pith and peels off the top of the water.
Notes on dressing and cheese:
You can serve the extra dressing along side your salad incase anyone wants more but don’t over dress the salad. It is very tangy to balance the sweetness of the sweet potato. I like to just keep the remainder in the friedge for another salad later. You could omit the cheese but honestly the salty fatty bite of cheese really balances out the salad so I would go the extra mile for a block of good paremensane cheese. This dish doesn’t have many ingredients so it’s important they all taste good.
This will serve 4 people if it is part of the main course but if it is a side among many then it would serve 8-10 depending on your parties appetite for salads.
