Sweet, Roasted, Sweet Potato Salad

When tasked with bringing a vegetable side dish to Thanksgiving, J and I were up to the challenge. We knew it needed to have fresh veggies, flavors and needed to be prepared and ready to go the day of Thanksgiving (you know, when there's already 6 other things fighting for oven space.) Of course there was going to be mashed potatoes, green beans and other usual turkey day treats. Also, knowing any variety of sweet potatoes or yams were not on the menu, we found just the thing (and thank goodness it's not the marshmallow topped yams I've learned to dread). It's fresh, flavorful and mostly seasonal! Enjoy!

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 4 medium sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size cubes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 cup pineapple or mango chunks (optional)
• 1 red bell pepper diced
• 1 yellow bell pepper diced
• 1/2 cup red onion finely diced
• 1 jalapeno seeded and finely chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro chopped
• 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Dressing

• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• zest of 1 orange (well I used 2 clementines)
• 2 tsp brown mustard
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Combine potatoes, olive oil and a little salt and pepper in a roasting pan. Roast 45 minutes (roughly) until cubes are tender, but not mushy, and a bit browned.

3. Pull potatoes from oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Once slightly cooled, mix the potatoes along with all other ingredients (besides the dressing).

4. Allow to cool almost completely and toss the salad with the dressing.

5. Can be eaten immediately, or as I prefer, let it sit overnight in the refrigerator so that the flavors can marry a bit more.

6. Toss prior to serving.

7. Enjoy!

Additional Tip: This makes a TON of the stuff so we were using it for corn tortilla tacos for the next couple of days. Delicious.