Fall Harvest Salad
Fall Harvest Salad – This salad is the perfect combination of salty, sweet, and all the best autumn flavors: sweet potatoes, cheddar, honeycrisp apples, walnuts, and kale.
Most fall salads are too sweet…
In creating this recipe, we found a fall salad can fall into the overly sweet category very quickly.
Apples are sweet on their own. Especially this time of year. And then you add a sweet apple cider dressing + candied nuts… it end up too sweet!!
This salad is the perfect balance of salty and sweet
We have sweetness from the honey roasted sweet potatoes, apples, and golden raisins. But then there’s the salted nuts, cheddar cheese, and smoked paprika on the sweet potatoes to balance out the flavor profile.
As for the dressing, I tested a bunch of homemade dressings. A classic store-bought balsamic vinaigrette ended up being our favorite. And I’m not complaining!! It makes life way easier that way!
Recipe modifications
For the sweet potatoes, I use my oven roasted sweet potatoes with honey. And they are essential to this salad. The honey glaze goes so well with all the flavors in this salad. So not really a modification because you can’t skip it!!
The sweet potatoes in this salad make it a filling meatless meal on it’s own. But you could add some chopped rotisserie chicken if you want!
If you don’t have walnuts, slivered almonds, sliced almonds, and pecans would all work in this recipe! Just make sure they are roasted, plain, or salted. Stay away from any kind of glazed nut though. It tends to make the salad too sweet.
If you don’t like raisins, use dried cranberries or dried cherries.
What to serve with this fall harvest salad?
My perfect fall meal would be this salad, a roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots.
And maybe some apple pie for dessert?!
Can you save the leftovers?
Yes! Kale holds up against dressing the day after. So you can save the dressed salad and it will still be good the next day.
You can also turn the leftover (with dressing on it) into a warm roasted vegetable bowl the next day. Add the leftovers to a skillet over medium heat. Cook for a few minutes to reheat the vegetables. Serve it up in a bowl or over some wild rice!
Watch the recipe video here:
Fall Harvest Salad
Ingredients
For the sweet potatoes:
- 2 large (~200 gram) sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (plus more to finish)
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (plus more to finish)
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (plus more to finish)
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (plus more to finish)
- 2 Tablespoons honey (plus more to finish)
For the salad:
- 1 bunch kale, de-stemmed and thinly sliced (curly or tuscan kale work!)
- 2 romaine hearts, thinly sliced
- 1 honeycrisp apple, cut into matchsticks
- 1/2 cup shredded white cheddar (about 4 oz)
- 1/3 cup golden raisins
- 1/3 cup walnuts
- Balsamic vinaigrette (homemade or store bought)
Instructions
For the sweet potatoes:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add the sweet potatoes to the baking sheet and arrange in a single layer.
- Drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. Toss and arrange in a single layer.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the oven, drizzle with honey. Shake the potatoes around to coat in honey. Bake for 15-20 more minutes or until you can stick a fork through the potatoes and the edges are caramelized.
- Finish with a drizzle of more honey and season with extra salt, pepper, garlic powder, and smoked paprika.
For the salad:
- In a large bowl, add the kale. Drizzle over 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinaigrette and massage with your hands.
- Add the romaine. Toss to evenly distribute.
- Top with the roasted sweet potatoes, apples, shredded cheddar, golden raisins, and walnuts.
- Toss with balsamic vinaigrette and serve.
