Roasted Harvest Salad
You know what sounds less and less appealing the colder it gets? Salad. During the hot summer months, a refreshing, cool, crisp salad sounds wonderful as a lunch or light dinner. But once the leaves start changing and the rain and cold air move in, cold salads are not as tempting. But I still love the crunchy texture and nutrient density of salads. And to be honest, I’m not quite ready for soup season to start.
Enter in the Roasted Harvest Salad. I have seen so many recipes using sweet potatoes and butternut squash recently, so I decided to make a roasted salad featuring these two vitamin packed vegetables.
The warm and tender butternut squash and sweet potatoes top a bed of peppery arugula which stand up nicely to the warm vegetables. Roasted red grapes, diced raw red onions, cranberries, sunflower seeds and creamy goat cheese meld together to create a wonderful balance of fall flavors. A simple orange vinaigrette dresses the leaves and pulls the zesty fresh flavors together. This salad is anything but boring and is perfect for early fall time.
Nutrition Benefits
Let’s chat about the nutritional value of our main ingredients arugula, butternut squash and sweet potatoes.
- Arugula is packed with vitamin K, about 27% of the recommended daily value per cup. It also provides 10% of your daily vitamin A needs, and provides some vitamin C, folate and calcium.
- Butternut squash and sweet potatoes both provide a large amount of vitamin A, vitamin C and fiber. A half a cup of butternut squash or sweet potatoes provides about 3.5 grams of fiber. Butternut squash provides some vitamin E, and B vitamins including thiamine, niacin, B6 and folate. Sweet potatoes provide manganese, B6, potassium, pantothenic acid, copper and niacin as well.
Why are these nutrients important?
Vitamin K’s main role is to aid in blood clotting. Vitamin A plays an important role in vision health and supports the immune system. Vitamin C also supports the immune system and aids in wound healing. The B vitamins all play a role in energy conversion, meaning they help turn our food into energy we can use! Fiber provides many health benefits to our bodies and is so important that I wrote an entire article dedicated to its benefits. For more information about fiber, head over to 4 Health Benefits of Fiber.
Alright, we’ve chatted enough, let’s dive into how to make this salad! This recipe makes 4 salads but can easily be doubled or cut in half.
Let’s Get Cooking!
This salad is very simple to make. Bear with me on the wordy instructions or skip to the recipe 🙂 The basic gist of it is to cut and roast the squash, sweet potato and grapes, toss the vinaigrette together and assemble the salads!
To get started, preheat your oven to 375.
The hardest part of this recipe is cutting and prepping the butternut squash. Wash and dry the outside of the squash. Place the squash on a cutting board and with a sharp knife, cut off the top and bottom of the squash. Next, use your muscles and carefully cut the squash in half. Using a vegetable peeler, peel off the skin of one of the butternut squash halves. Scoop out the seeds and slice the squash from top to bottom in 1/4th inch strips. Toss the squash with 1 tsp olive oil, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Lay the squash in a single layer on a baking pan and set aside while preparing the sweet potato.
We are going to treat the sweet potato in the same way as the butternut squash, except it will be cut into ¼ inch cubes. Wash and peel the sweet potato. To make the sweet potato stable when cutting, cut off some of the side to create a flat base. Make ¼ inch cuts lengthwise to create oval shaped disks. Then cut the disks into ¼ inch strips and cut the strips into ¼ inch cubes. Toss the sweet potato with 1 tsp olive oil, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper and lay in a single layer on a different baking pan than the butternut squash, keeping them to one side of the pan. The grapes will be roasted on the other half of the pan later on.
Let’s get to roasting! Place the pans of squash and sweet potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes.
While the squash and potatoes are roasting, slice the grapes in half and dice the red onion. Set them aside while you make the vinaigrette.
In a small bowl or mason jar, juice 1 orange and add the apple cider vinegar, apple juice concentrate and oil. Whisk the ingredients together or put the lid on the jar and shake, shake, shake!
Once the squash and potatoes have been in the oven for 20 min, give them a mix and add the sliced grapes to the sweet potato pan. Bake for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes and squash are fork tender.
Wash, rinse and dry the arugula and place about 2 cups in each bowl. When the squash, potatoes and grapes are done, it is time to assemble the salads!
Divide the squash, potatoes and grapes between the beds of arugula. Sprinkle each salad with 1 tbsp diced red onion, 1 tbsp dried cranberries, 1 tsp sunflower seeds, and 1 tbsp goat cheese. Drizzle on some of your homemade orange vinaigrette and you are ready to enjoy!
The best part about salads is you can add more or less of each topping depending on your taste preference. I know I add a little extra goat cheese and cranberries to my plate!
Roasted Harvest Salad
Ingredients
Salad:
- 8 cups Arugula
- ½ Butternut Squash
- 1 Sweet Potato
- 1 cup red grapes halved
- 4 Tbsp diced red onion about ¼ small onion
- 4 Tbsp dried cranberries
- 4 tsp sunflower seeds or pepitas
- 2 oz goat cheese about 4 Tbsp
- 2 tsp olive oil divided
- ½ tsp salt divided
- ½ tsp black pepper divided
Vinaigrette:
- 1 orange juiced
- 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp apple juice concentrate
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Wash the butternut squash and cut in half. Scoop out the seeds and peel one half of the butternut squash. Cut into ¼ inch slices.
- Toss the butternut squash slices with 1 tsp olive oil, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Lay the squash in a single layer on a baking pan and set aside while preparing the sweet potato.
- Wash and peel the sweet potato. Dice the sweet potato into ¼ inch cubes.
- Toss the sweet potato cubes with 1 tsp olive oil, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Place the sweet potato cubes in a single layer on a baking pan, keeping them to one side of the pan. The grapes will be roasted on the other half of the pan later on.
- Cook the squash and sweet potatoes for 20 minutes.
- Dice the onion and set aside.
- Slice the grapes in half. Once the squash and sweet potatoes have cooked for 20 minutes, add the sliced grapes to the sweet potato pan. Cook for an additional 10 minutes or until the squash and sweet potatoes are fork tender.
- Wash, rinse and dry the arugula and place about 2 cups in each bowl.
- When the butternut squash and sweet potatoes are fork tender, assemble the salads by topping each salad with 1 tbsp diced red onion, 1 tbsp dried cranberries, 1 tsp sunflower seeds, and 1 tbsp goat cheese. Drizzle on 1 tbsp orange vinaigrette. Toss and enjoy!