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A beautiful salad made with massaged kale, roasted sweet potatoes, dried cherries, crumbled Feta cheese & pepitas. An easy kale and sweet potato recipe that’s nourishing & delicious!
Kale Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes
The perfect fall vegetarian salad with nourishing ingredients.
This recipe is created by Monique of Ambitious Kitchen and Lee of Fit Foodie Finds.
This kale salad with sweet potato is my favorite autumn salad. The sweet potato, maple syrup, and dried cherries all work so well together! The colors are beautiful, it’s delicious and it’s super nutritious.
It’s also great to make ahead for meal prep for the week, the flavors only get better! To meal prep, divide in 4 meal prep containers keeping the chickpeas and pepitas separate.
Variations:
- If you want to make this dairy-free you can leave out the cheese.
- Roasted butternut squash would work great in place of sweet potato.
- Swap the dried cherries for cranberries.
Roasted Sweet Potato Kale and Dried Cherries, Feta & Pepitas
Yield: 4 servings
Serving Size: 1 salad
Ingredients
For the salad:
For the dressing:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice or lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- Freshly ground salt and pepper, to taste
For the topping:
- 1/4 cup pepitas pumpkin seeds
- ¼ cup feta cheese crumbles
- ⅓ cup dried cherries
- ½ cup roasted or canned chickpeas
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Place cubed sweet potatoes on baking sheet, drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil and maple syrup over the top then add garlic and salt. Toss to evenly coat the sweet potatoes with oil and spices.
- Spread sweet potato cubes evenly around pan and roast for 35-45 minutes, stirring halfway through, until sweet potatoes are fork tender.
- While the sweet potatoes are cooking, chop your kale if you haven’t already and add it to a large bowl.
- Next prepare your dressing: In a small bowl add the following: olive oil, orange juice, apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard and maple syrup; whisk until smooth.
- Pour dressing all over the chopped kale and use your (clean) hands to gently massage the dressing into the kale for a few minutes. This helps remove any bitterness from the kale and adds flavor the the leafy green.
- Once sweet potato cubes are done cooking, add it to the kale.
- Pour into 4 salad bowls, or 1 large bowl for sharing.
- Before you serve the salad, top with pumpkin seeds, feta and roasted crunchy chickpeas. (Tip: Don’t add the cheese or pumpkin seeds until you are ready to eat; you want them crunchy not soggy.)
Last Step:
Please leave a rating and comment letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business to thrive and continue providing free, high-quality recipes for you.Nutrition
Serving: 1 salad, Calories: 288 kcal, Carbohydrates: 42.5 g, Protein: 8.5 g, Fat: 11 g, Fiber: 6 g, Sugar: 16 g
Categories:
I used this as meal prep for my weekend work shifts and I was looking forward to lunch every day. This salad was so delicious. The only thing I did different was use a Tuscan flavored olive oil in the dressing. I will definitely be adding this to my meal prep rotation!
A great lunch dish – nice flavor and the kale holds up well to the dressing. I used canned chickpeas, and dried cranberries instead of cherries since that’s what we had on hand. Don’t be intimidated if you’re not a fan of maple – it offers a subtle sweetness without an overbearing maple flavor.
What I took from all of these recipes is use your own spices to make a taco flavour, some noodles are better than others, so use them.
Some people like dairy, but it not being such a good choice, use something else in it’s place.
I think it would be common sense?
And one person was right, sorry I forgot who, but this stuff is a heck of a lot cleaner than a lot of other recipes, already prepared, and restaurant foods
https://wapexclusive.com.ng/
Delicious!!!!!
This is my favorite Kale salad. The sweet potato, maple syrup, and dried cherries all work together so well.
Amazing salad! I took a mid-morning HIIT class today. Rushed home and roasted the potatoes while showering, threw the rest together when I got out and OhMyGoodness! Beautiful (the colors!), delicious AND super nutritious. I feel like nothing can stop me today. No thing! Thank you! Oh and I could only find spicy roasted chickpeas at my local farmer’s market… NICE spicy contrast with the sweet.
I found this recipe by googling kale salad, I’m a little nervous about the sweet potatoes and dressing because I don’t care for maple syrup … Can I use honey instead or can you suggest a different syrup?
I have tried some of your other recipes and I love them….thank you
Honey would work great
I did the same, I only like maple syrup on breakfast foods. Tasted great.
Meal prepping this for my husband and I’s lunch the next day. Normally I do a salad in a jar, and leave the dressing on the bottom. Since you use the dressing to massage into kale, how would you suggest prepping this?
It should hold up fine with dressing!
I was wondering if anyone tried a different cheese besides feta…or is feta irreplaceable in this recipe?
Goat cheese or leave it out.
Please excuse my ignorance but is it 288kcal per the ENTIRE salad? Or 288kcal per 1/4 as it reads it makes 4 servings?
Serving: 1 salad, Calories: 288kcal,
Was at a wedding last weekend and they had a salad similar to this and I loved it.
Decided to try and make it by Googling Kale and sweet potato salad. I found this recipe and tried it.
It’s absolutely delicious and versatile.
It’s actually tastier after it sits overnight. I just had the leftovers for breakfast
This was so good. I made the sweet potatoes on the stove with a spiralizer and subbed cooking spray for the olive oil in the pan and used sugar free syrup and added a more chickpeas for protein. Thanks for a new recipe to add to my rotation.
I made this salad for my lunches for the week and won’t be putting the dressing on until day-of. Should I be storing the dressing in the fridge, or leave it out at room temp? Thanks!
I just made this in a big batch for my lunches for the week, and I think it was the best salad I’ve ever had. I decided to sautee the kale, and it was so so good. I swapped the chickpeas for canned cannelini beans, too (it was what I had), and it was still just delicious. Your recipes are always so awesome. Thanks again!
Omg! This was absolutely delicious! I didn’t add the chickpeas since I didn’t have any on hand but I completed the meal with an avocado toast. Very hearty! The dressing is a keeper! Loved it! Thank you Gina!
This is delicious! I have made it twice in the last week. Thank you!
Making this tonight. Any tips on how to roast the chickpeas? I have canned, but roasted sounds much better!
I’m going to try throwing the chickpeas in to roast w/the sweet potatoes… will report back! 🙂
Ok so I took canned chickpeas, rinsed them, spread out on their own cookie sheet, patted dry with a paper towel, & roasted at 375 for about 35 minutes. They turned out crunchy and tasty. Definitely put some parchment paper down unless you want a leopard-print cookie sheet like I got. There’s a recipe on this site for roasted chickpeas that I want to try out too. Happy chickpeating!
I made this for dinner a few nights ago and it was the best salad I ever had. My husband also agreed and asked for this to be a dinner “regular”. I didn’t change any part of your recipe as I loved all the ingredients! Thank you for continuing to post delicious vegetarian recipes!
Oh em gee!!! So good!! I added chicken and used butternut squash instead of sweet potato. Yum!!!
Hi! I’m so excited to make this but can’t find pumpkin seeds at my local grocery store. What can I substitute with? Is it still as good without it? Thank you!
You can really sub any nut you like, sunflower seeds would work.
Thanks for sharing! Just had this for lunch and loved it. I added chicken but left out the cheese because I’m intolerant. I also roasted the chickpeas with Thai curry spice, which is rocking my world.
Would this be okay to make ahead for the week? Will the kale get wilted if left in the fridge after being dressed and massaged? I plan on leave all of the toppings but the sweet potato in a separate container.
Did you end up trying this as a make ahead meal? I’m wondering the same thing about the kale!
I plan on making ahead on Sunday for lunches next week. if you stack them in mason jars, the kale will be fine. You know, wet stuff on the bottom, dry stuff on top.
I made this as a mason jar salad for lunches during the work week with a few substitutions (due to food allergies in my family and what I had on hand), and it was delicious. Thanks for the great recipes and inspiration!
Awesome!
This looks delicious! This salad would make a great lunch for me but “spending” 12 points on lunch feels reckless 🙂 I only get 30 a day. Any general tips on how to reduce points on salads/bowls? It feels unfair that healthy options like this are so many points! Thanks for all you do with this blog.
I know what you mean. If you swap the sweet potato for butternut, the points will be a lot lower.
Oh good idea!!
I’m going to be lazy here Gina…what would the FP be is we sub squash for sweets?