Warm Winter Salad
Winter is here! At least, it is in Ottawa. The ground is covered in snow, and the temperatures are in the negatives. As a result, I’m opting for warm smoothies and salads! I love starting my day with a smoothie, and I love ensuring that I get a nice big salad either at lunch or with dinner. It keeps me feeling energized, and helps keep my digestive system happy. But cold smoothies and salads in the winter are the worst. All you want is something warm and soothing, and that could cause us to avoid the things that our bodies need the most for want of a hot, often carb filled meal (I’m thinking pasta, chili, etc).
So, here is one of my warm salad recipes. It has a few fresh elements, but it’s mostly warm root vegetables, which are great for your body and they’re totally in season this time of year! So you can probably buy them locally, supporting your nearby farmers.
Salad Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
1 large sweet potato
A large bunch of kale
1/2 cup walnuts
The seeds from 1 pomegranate
Dressing Ingredients:
Zest of 1/2 an orange
Juice of 1/2 an orange
2 tbsp tahini (sesame seed butter)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 inch fresh grated ginger
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Water, to thin
For the salad, chop up the butternut squash and the sweet potato into cubes and roast them in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until they’re golden brown on the edges and cooked through. You may want to turn them a few times.
Once the squash and sweet potato are cooked, add them to a large bowl. Then add your kale, chopped into bite sized pieces. Garnish with the walnuts and pomegranate seeds.
For the dressing, add all of the ingredients to a blender (or mix in a bowl) and blend until smooth. If you use a bowl, mix all of the first 6 ingredients and then drizzle in the olive oil slowly while you whisk. The tahini can make this dressing quite thick, so you may wish to add some water at the end to thin it out a bit.
Top the salad with the dressing and enjoy! You can add many more ingredients to this salad if you wish. For example, I added some leftover organic chicken to it for my lunch the other day. It’s fairly versatile, but I LOVE the warm winter flavours that are incorporated by the ginger, the orange and the pomegranate seeds.
Enjoy!
