Beets Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts Salad

It’s no secret that I didn’t always have the passion for cooking I have now. When I was a teenager it felt more like a chore because I was helping out at home after school instead of hanging out with friends. Once I moved from Albania to US, then cooking became just something I had to do so I could keep myself healthy for my studies and my job. Occasionally the potlucks in college gave me that spark of this is so cool, but it died out buried by exams and late night studies. However, throughout all these years I made amazing salads! I wish I kept records of everything I put together. I never made salads with a recipe. It was mostly, let’s see what’s in the refrigerator and what goes with what. That’s how this Beets, Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts Salad was born.

Jump to Recipe

Some links in my posts may be affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you purchase items by clicking on these links. I will always disclose when a product in a post has been gifted by a company as well as when a post or product is sponsored.

Health Benefits of Salads

I feel that salads are the perfect way to achieve your intake of vegetables for the day. Combinations of different veggies will ensure that you get a variety of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Serving different salads to kids will expose them to a lot of vegetables. Many kids nowadays don’t know know what beets, leeks, or okra are. I love offering different choices, even if my kids don’t eat beets the first time, they will pick over the sweet potato or the other way around.

Salads are a perfect source of dietary fiber. Fiber helps with weight control as well as reduction of bad cholesterol. That’s one of my favorite benefits. Just last week I took a trip to see family for a health emergency and ate lots of delicious, comfort food but I missed my salads.

You can adapt salads to your way of eating. Salads can be perfect for both vegans, vegetarians, carnivores or people on keto or any other diet. You can add chickpeas or beans to your veggies for more protein. Or you can do just olive oil/lemon juice dressing if you are on keto and avoiding carbs. There are so many options to satisfy anyone.

Above all you are eating fresh vegetables and fruits. You are teaching your kids to eat healthy and to train their taste buds to eat different textured and flavored food.

How To Make A Salad & Incorporate Into Meal Planning

As a food blogger, this is counterproductive of me to say. But don’t worry so much about recipes when you put a salad together. Get ideas from Pinterest or your favorite restaurant, but don’t let yourself not prepare your favorite salad because you are missing an ingredient or two from the list.

Think of lettuce, arugula, spring mix and spinach as interchangeable. I know, I know certain vegetables taste better with spinach and others with arugula. But that shouldn’t hold you back from preparing your favorite salad.

Add lots of chopped vegetables. Tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, onions, celery, bell peppers should always be in your shopping list.

Add extras like broccoli, carrots, brussel sprouts, beets, sweet potatoes, cabbage etc. Add fruits in salads if you like a salty/sweet combinations i.e. oranges, strawberries, applies, pears, blueberries etc.

If you like a bit of crunch in your salads think of nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds) and raw radishes.

Add protein, either plant or animal form. My favorite is roasted chicken but there are so many more options.

I love cheese in my salads, mostly feta cheese…hello, i’m Albanian!! As most people from Mediterranean countries, we like feta cheese in everything. My husband jokes and says I’ll have it with coffee one day:))). But cheeses like feta cheese, goat cheese, blue cheese, burrata etc are very popular choices in salads around the world.

All these choices make for a compounded amount of salads you can create a home. A simple dressing made with olive oil/vinegar or olive oil/lemon juice would be perfect for most salads.

If you live in a mostly warm/hot climate like I do (Florida), salads will become staples in your meal planning. I don’t always have the time to shop according to my meal plan, but I buy a lot of vegetables, cheeses and some meat/poultry and occasional rotisserie chicken. Follow the guide above to ix and match salads with what is already in you refrigerator.

Beets Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts Salad Notes

So basically the way I put this salad together was by checking what I had in the refrigerator few days ago. I had 3 beets and 2 sweet potatoes. I made a bed of chopped lettuce. After roasting beets and sweet potatoes separately until I could pierce them with a fork, I let them cool down. I cut beets and sweet potatoes in cubic shapes and placed over lettuce. Then added walnuts and green onions. Finally I sprinkled with salt and poured olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the vegetables. I didn’t toss so it could look pretty on the table, but tossed right before serving. My kids loved the big chunks of beets and sweet potatoes because they always prefer to eat by hand then use a fork.’

• You can roast or boil the beets and sweet potatoes, I do both. Roasted beets and sweet potatoes don’t get as soft as the boiled ones.
• I prefer a simple dressing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar in this case. Both beets and sweet potatoes have carbs and taste to spare, so no need to smother them too much with dressing.
• I used romaine lettuce for this salad, but you use spinach or arugula as well.
• This salad is a winner during Thanksgiving. My guests love the vibrant, Fall colors of beets and sweet potatoes. Plus the recipe compliments very well my other menu items.

Other Salad Recipes

If you liked this Beets, Sweet Potatoes and Walnuts Salad, please pin the below image to Pinterest so you can easily find it later. For additional salad recipes, see the links below. Thank you!!

• Red Orange and Cabbage Salad
• Potatoes, Avocado and Dill Salad
• Orange Salad with Arugula
• Dragonfruit, Pear and Spinach Salad
• Fig, Goat Cheese and Pecan Salad