My all-time favorite salad, in the entire world, is the vegetarian sweet potato salad from Souvla in San Francisco. The sweet potatoes are perfectly roasted, the kale salad is coated in the most delicious Greek yogurt dressing, there’s a salty Greek cheese sich that I’m pretty sure is not feta (but it’s close!), pickled red onions cut through the creaminess of the dressing, and crunchy walnuts top everything off.
It is truly, legitimately, a perfect salad. But it’s more time-consuming than my regular weekday salad! The sweet potatoes have to be roasted, the onions pickled, the walnuts toasted, the dressing stirred together. It probably took me 45 minutes to an hour to put this whole thing together, and I regret NOTHING. I will make this salad over, and over, and over again, but next time I’ll triple the recipe so that I have more leftovers!
I changed elements of the original salad – I added oranges (which I thought were on this one, but they’re on the chicken salad!) and raisins (just cuz I like ‘em), and I sort of combined Souvla’s Greek yogurt ranch and their garlic yogurt. It’s all delicious, it’s all good.
Check out my how-to IGTV!
Roasted Sweet Potato Kale Salad with Garlic Yogurt
Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts:
Garlic Yogurt Dressing:
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
- Juice of 1 lemon (or 1 tablespoon light colored vinegar like apple cider or champagne)
- 2 tbsp parsley (or chives, cilantro, dill or mint! any soft herb you have will be wonderful)
- 1 garlic clove, grated
- pinch of kosher salt
Other Components:
- 2 cups thinly sliced lacinato kale, ribs removed
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups thinly sliced romaine lettuce
- 3 tbsp chopped Kalamata olives (I forgot these in mine, but I want you to have them!)
- 1 orange, segmented (or just chopped up)
- 2 tbsp raisins
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Toss the sweet potatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper on a large rimmed baking sheet until evenly coated. Roast for 20 minutes. Scoot potatoes over enough so that there’s space for the walnuts, then add the walnuts to the baking sheet and continue roasting for 8 more minutes until potatoes are fork tender and walnuts are deeply golden brown. The nuts will go from toasted to burnt very quickly, so be sure to keep an eye on them!
- Now, quick! Start making your pickled red onions right away so that they have as much time as possible to pickle before lunch time. If you’re reading this recipe ahead of time, make them now! They only get better with time, and they stay good in the fridge for weeks.
- Next up, stir all of those Garlic Yogurt ingredients together and set aside.
- Get all of the other components chopped up and ready to go.
- Add the kale to a large bowl and sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon salt over top. Use your hands to “massage” the kale – crunching it between your fists 10 to 15 times until it starts to feel wet in your hands, but isn’t totally soft and broken down (that will happen if you keep going, and is delicious in OTHER salads, but not this one!).
- Add the romaine and 1/4 cup of the dressing to the bowl and toss until all of the lettuce is coated.
- Divide lettuce between two bowls. Top with roasted sweet potatoes, olives, pickled onions, oranges, raisins, walnuts, feta, and one last drizzle of dressing just for good measure. Sprinkle with leftover soft herbs if you have any sitting on your cutting board.
- ENJOY!
Video
Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts:
Garlic Yogurt Dressing:
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
- Juice of 1 lemon (or 1 tablespoon light colored vinegar like apple cider or champagne)
- 2 tbsp parsley (or chives, cilantro, dill or mint! any soft herb you have will be wonderful)
- 1 garlic clove, grated
- pinch of kosher salt
Other Components:
- 2 cups thinly sliced lacinato kale, ribs removed
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups thinly sliced romaine lettuce
- 3 tbsp chopped Kalamata olives (I forgot these in mine, but I want you to have them!)
- 1 orange, segmented (or just chopped up)
- 2 tbsp raisins
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese