Who-ho-ho-hoa. What a weekend!
Real live kitchen appliances, more sparkly snowflakes, an annual friend group viewing of Christmas with the Kranks, roasted sweet potato salads with candied walnuts and creamy almond butter dressing, and everything else good in the world – I swear – it all just found me between Friday evening and Monday morning.
This salad is a tossed texture-pile of sweet and salty bright orange sweet potatoes, crunchy and strong and vibrant kale, irresistibly crispity candied walnuts, and the creamiest and most savory-wonderful almond butter dressing. And I love love looove it.
Please know this –> I have a thing about kale salads which is that I don’t eat them unless the kale pieces are chopped extremely small. Like, shredded, almost. Or minced. Almost like they’re undetectable to my mouth while singing happy green songs to my eyes. As a result, this choppy-textured salad falls somewhere between the creamy-soft potato salad and the crunchy-light leafy salad and I’m veryveryvery okay with it.
It’s roasty and tender, crispy and green, salty-sweet, and comforting. But wait though, it’s a salad. WHAT IS GOING ON.
Maybe you should look at our new countertops for a second while I collect myself.
Kitchen Update (1 MIN 45 SEC):
Yeah, countertops! And if you follow on Facebook you might have already seen that we have our appliances in place too (squeee!) and we’ll have a video of that soon. And then the backsplash, and then the appliance panels, and then me cooking delicious things in the kitchen.
Can I just say one comment in regards to having a kitchen?
H-A-P-P-Y. That is all.
I actually made this salad during one of my many trips back to my parents’ house when the kitchen was being remodeled, so I’ll just give you a second to give my parents a virtual high five through the screen. BOOM. Nailed it.
As much as I usually like to be really fresh and real-time on the blog, obviously this one isn’t real time, as in I didn’t make this in my kitchen yet. And thanks for asking, but NO I didn’t take care of the 900 inches of remodeling dust on all our furniture either or organize my eighty zillion boxes of miscellaneous kitchen gadgets hiding in every corner of the basement — one thing at a time, okay? Somehow it all feels like so much work.
When do I get to snap my fingers and have everything clean and orderly with Bjork feeding me melty sea-salty chocolate chip cookies as I stir the chili over the new range? Yeah that.
This would be a great Thanksgiving salad because it has that salad-but-not-a-salad feel that errryone always loves. It also makes for a great take-to-work lunch because it’s not a super leafy salad meaning it doesn’t really matter if it sits with the dressing for a day or two. In fact, in my experience, more days in the fridge almost always equals more and better flavor. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
Just one second ago as I was writing that I had a day dream where I ate candied walnuts for a few weeks till real Thanksgiving.
Don’t even try to stop me.
Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Candied Walnuts
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
This Roasted Sweet Potato Salad has a handful of shredded kale, candied walnuts, and the best creamy almond dressing. Yum!
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 2 sweet potatoes, diced
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon gravy herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, nutmeg, salt, pepper)
- salt to taste
- 4 cups chopped kale
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 tablespoon butter (replace with coconut oil if vegan)
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
For the dressing:
- 3 tablespoons almond butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon stoneground mustard
- ½ tablespoon raw honey or maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt, more to taste
- ½ teaspoon minced garlic
Instructions
- Sweet Potatoes: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Toss the sweet potatoes with the oil and gravy herbs. Spread on a greased baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes – check the potatoes for doneness, gently stir, and return to oven. Repeat this process every five minutes for about 15 more minutes (total roasting time should be anywhere from 30-45 minutes). Turn up the heat to 475 and roast for a final 5-10 minutes to really brown them nice and pretty. When they’re done, they should be visibly browned and relatively “dry” to the touch so that once you loosen them you can shake the pan and they slide back and forth easily.
- Kale: Cut the kale into very small bite-sized pieces, or shred it into tiny bits (like pictured). Set aside.
- Walnuts: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and add the walnuts and sugar. Stir continuously over moderate heat for about 5 minutes. When the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has coated the walnuts, transfer to foil or wax paper to separate and cool.
- Dressing: Pulse all ingredients together in a food processor. Taste and adjust.
- Assembly: Toss all the ingredients together just before serving OR arrange the nuts, sweet potatoes, and any other toppings you want over the top of the kale in pretty colorful rows. Drizzle with dressing and enjoy.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Category: Side Dish
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: roasted sweet potato salad, thanksgiving salad, candied walnuts
This salad is phenomenal!! I am seriously in love. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the recipe. I made it tonight and liked it a lot. I did not candy the walnuts because I thought it would make the salad too sweet. I find sweet potatoes cloying at times and didn’t want it too sweet. Also, I blanched the kale because I don’t do raw kale and it was very good. I’ll make this one again.
Best salad ever!!
I never write reviews but this salad made me write one
Most delicious salad ever. Great for vegans. I added bacon and avacado, it was amazing.
I was going to make your Roasted Sweet Potato, Wild Rice & arugula salad for dinner (amazing!). Now I am waging an internal battle on which way to cook my sweet potatoes. This looks delicious. Every one of your recipies is a hit in my house, thanks!
thanks Kim! 😀
Loved this salad! I doubled the recipe to take to a family brunch. I subbed out the white sugar for coconut sugar. We had leftovers (shocking!), so in a recipe re-mix I cooked up some ground pork sausage and mixed in the leftover salad and used it to stuff roasted, maple glazed, acorn squash. Super delicious take two!
So glad! thanks Kelly!
what could I use instead of almond butter for the dressing? That salad looks/sounds super delicious!
I’ve used peanut butter with good results!
I made this for dinner tonight and it was amazing! I added chicken, cukes and pomegranate seeds because, why not. 🙂 My one-year-old was shoveling those sweet potatoes in! Thanks for another fantastic recipe!
That’s awesome! I’m so happy to hear that. Thanks so much Shelby!
1/2 Tbsp of gravy herbs. Do you mean combine all of the herbs AND S&P to total 1/2 Tbsp?
OR, 1/2 Tbsp of EACH herb/spice? Thanks.
1/2 tablespoon total. 🙂 I just used a store bought mix literally called Gravy Herbs. It’s just a pinch of everything listed there.
I made this a few nights ago, it was seriously delicious! I subbed out the white sugar with coconut sugar and it worked well.
That’s awesome! I’m so happy to hear that. Thanks so much Kate!
Hmmm ! I will try this receipe next sunday cause in France we don’t have receipes of sweet potato and I like it ! Merci from France 🙂
SO beautiful! I feel the exact same way about kale 🙂 beautiful photos, as always
You speak my language. This salad is amazing. Can’t wait to try it!
I’ve been craving sweet potatoes all the time lately, but I’ve also been trying to eat big meal-sized salads several times a week since it makes me more energized. This is the perfect combination 🙂 I’ll add some sweet potatoes to my salads!
Love everything about this salad!
Thanks Maria!
This will look so pretty on the Thanksgiving table and I am sure will taste great too. Thanks for the recipe!
Looks delicious! And I am the same way with kale…I know it’s super healthy, I know I need to eat it, but tiny pieces or in smoothies is the way to go for me :).
Yep. Tiny pieces. Tiiiiny.
Your kitchen is coming together beautifully! This salad looks amazing!!!
Thanks Amanda! We’ll have to have you over soon to see it!
This looks super good. I’m the same way about kale – I chop it up really fine also. My husband is not a huge fan of kale so this helps him, too. Also massaging it with a little lemon and olive oil then letting it sit for 10-15 minutes while I prep everything else makes a huge difference! I can’t wait to try this. I’ll be veganizing it so I’ll probably also replace the honey with maple syrup – yum!
What a great idea Taylor – love the soaking trick.
This looks delicious! One quick question – can I buy “gravy herbs?” Or do I just mix equal parts of all the herbs/spices you mentioned and then use 1/2 Tablespoon of that?
Thanks!
Lindsey
Yes you can! Haha! I used a mix from a little boutique food store in Saint Paul but I couldn’t find their product online. But I did find lots of gravy herb packages online so I’m sure you can buy them at regular grocery stores too (no weird ingredients – just the dried spices already mixed).
This salad is screaming my name. So healthy and beautiful.
Christmas with the Kranks!!!! Yes!!! That is one of my favorite Christmas movies. I love the tanning bed scene, too funny! I also love Jamie Lee Curtis and the relationship she has with her daughter Blaire in the movie. Reminds me of me and Alex. 🙂 And, it wouldn’t be a good movie if it didn’t make me cry at the end. CWTKs delivers!!
This salad looks fabulous. Kale, sweet potatoes, and candied walnuts. What’s not to like?
It’s such a cheesy movie and still, I love it, every time. 🙂
This salad looks amazing – and I’m the same way with kale…I thought I was like the lone weirdo out there that needed it suuuuper finely chopped in salads lol. And that video! I legit teared up because it was so cute, YAY for counter tops!
OH MY GOSH STAHHHP. Just come over and visit already Phi!
Sounds like a wonderful salad! Love the idea of adding roasted sweet potatoes.
Oh. My. Yum!!!!