This roasted sweet potato salad recipe is a perfect fall lunch or side dish! Feta cheese, avocado, and a bright tahini dressing fill it with flavor.
I hope you’re all excited, because this sweet potato salad recipe is the first of many fall salads that I have coming your way this season! I love salad all year long (Like, who can say no to a tomato salad in the summer?), but fall salads have a special place in my heart. We move away from juicy summer bounty towards sweeter, starchier veggies like sweet potatoes and squash. And after a few months of craving leafless salads filled with tomatoes and corn, I want nothing more than a bowl of fall greens like spinach, arugula, or kale. Together, these fresh greens and hearty autumn veggies create salads that are light and healthy, but satisfying, too.
In this roasted sweet potato salad recipe, some of my all-time favorite ingredients come together in one place. It boasts arugula, feta cheese, pepitas, avocado, tahini dressing, and roasted sweet potatoes. I mean, talk about a perfect combination. The tangy feta contrasts with the caramelized sweet potatoes, while the creamy avocado plays off the crunchy pepitas. The arugula makes the whole thing light and fresh, and the bright tahini dressing ties it all together. If this sweet potato salad isn’t an ideal fall lunch, I don’t know what is.
Sweet Potato Salad Recipe Ingredients
A few basic ingredients fill this sweet potato salad recipe with delicious texture and flavor:
- Sweet potatoes, of course! I roast them until they’re caramelized on the outside and tender in the middle.
- Arugula – I’m obsessed with these soft bitter greens! If you don’t have arugula on hand, spinach, massaged kale, or baby lettuces would be great here too.
- Avocado – It adds creamy richness to this hearty sweet potato salad.
- Pepitas – For crunch!
- Feta cheese – I love how its tangy flavor plays off the caramelized sweet potatoes. If you’re vegan, skip the cheese entirely, or replace it with a few pickled red onions for pop.
- Tahini dressing – This bright, nutty dressing ties it all together! It’s a simple mix of tahini, lemon juice, maple syrup, olive oil, sesame oil, garlic, water, and salt.
To make this recipe, roast the sweet potatoes and whisk together the dressing. Then, assemble the salad in a large bowl or platter with the arugula, roasted sweet potatoes, avocado, pepitas, and feta cheese. Drizzle on the dressing, and enjoy!
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Tips and Variations
- Let the sweet potatoes cool before you toss everything together. If you assemble the salad when the sweet potatoes are hot from the oven, the arugula will wilt. Instead, give them a chance to cool before you toss everything together. That way, the arugula will still be vibrant when you eat.
- Add the dressing and the avocado at the last minute. This recipe is a great one to meal prep for lunch, but if you make it in advance, store the dressing and the avocado separately until you eat. If you add the dressing too early, the salad will get soggy. Similarly, if you cut the avocado too far ahead of time, it’ll turn brown and bitter. But if you add them both at the last minute, it’ll be delicious.
- Change it up! I love this sweet potato salad recipe as-written, but feel free to get creative with it! Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Make a Southwest salad. Before you put the sweet potatoes in the oven, toss them with chili powder. Add black beans, red bell peppers, and green onions or pickled red onions to the salad, and replace the tahini dressing with cilantro lime dressing or chipotle sauce.
- Bulk it up. Thanks to the sweet potatoes, avocado, and pepitas, this salad is already pretty hearty. But if you want to make it even more filling, toss in a handful of roasted chickpeas, cooked French green lentils, farro, or quinoa. You could also add extra veggies like roasted broccoli, cauliflower, or Brussels sprouts!
- Add something sweet. Dried cranberries, dried tart cherries, or pomegranate seeds would taste fantastic with the caramelized sweet potatoes and tangy feta in this recipe.
Let me know what variations you try!
Sweet Potato Salad Serving Suggestions
This sweet potato salad recipe is a delicious healthy lunch! Enjoy it on its own, or pair it with a slice of avocado toast, crusty bread, or homemade focaccia. It’d also be yummy with a grilled cheese sandwich or a cup of soup like my Tomato Basil Soup, Carrot Ginger Soup, Many-Veggie Soup, Butternut Squash Soup, or Curried Lentil Soup. Find more of my favorite soup recipes here!
I also love to serve this sweet potato salad as a side dish. Pair it with your favorite protein, or serve it with one of these recipes for a fresh, healthy dinner:
- Stuffed Peppers
- Easy Black Bean Burgers or Best Veggie Burgers
- Vegetable Frittata
- Shakshuka
- Baked Feta
- Acorn Squash with Chickpeas and Chimichurri
For more easy dinner ideas, check out this post!
More Favorite Hearty Salads
If you love this sweet potato salad recipe, try one of these hearty salads next:
- Kale Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing
- Best Broccoli Salad
- Niçoise Salad
- Butternut Squash Salad
- Roasted Beet Salad
- Farmhouse Farro Salad
- Curried Lentil Salad
- Homemade Caesar Salad
For more of my favorite salad recipes, check out this post!
Sweet Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 Roasted Sweet Potatoes
- 1 recipe Tahini Dressing
- 4 cups arugula
- â…“ cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1 avocado, sliced
- Lemon wedge, for squeezing
- 3 tablespoons toasted pepitas
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Prepare the Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Tahini Dressing according to the recipes.
- Assemble the salad on a large platter with the arugula, a drizzle of dressing, the sweet potatoes, and feta. Top with the avocado slices and squeeze a little lemon juice over the avocado. Drizzle with more dressing and top with the pepitas. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
This recipe is great! I followed the suggestion to add other roasted veggies so I did broccoli and Brussel sprouts, and I also added in roasted chickpeas. Very filling and delicious
Not sure what I did wrong- after 25 minutes of roasting my sweet potatoes were still soft but burned on the bottom. I thought I spread them out pretty well.
Hi Dori, I’d check that your oven temperature is accurate. Also, be sure to place the baking sheet on the middle rack.
I substituted baby spinach for the arugula. Used vegan feta cheese. This recipe is DELICIOUS!! Filling, healthy…feels fancy enough for company. Even people who often don’t like what I make were amazed by how good it was. This will be in my rotation for sure! Was looking for something new to do with sweet potatoes that I needed to use
Hi Anita, I’m so glad you loved the salad!
I just made this tonight. It’s relatively easy to throw together – not too much slicing and dicing.
The freshness is nice and the tahini dressing really makes it pop.
I think this could be eaten as a light lunch or dinner or even paired with a protein.
Thanks!!
YUMMO. I wanted to bulk this up a bit so I could have it for dinner and then lunches the next day, so added some red onion which I roasted with the sweet potato, quinoa and fresh basil.
Hi Simone, those add-ins sound delicious!
This salad is SO good and filling. I feel amazing after eating it and I crave it all the time! ?
I genuinely believe I will make the salad for the rest of my life. Thank you for such a yummy and simple recipe!
Hi Ollie, such a sweet comment! I’m so glad you love the salad.
I was pleased to find this inexpensive-ingredients autumn salad, and it wasn’t hard to pull it together. My sister was excited when she saw it, and I loved bringing such a pretty salad to the table! It was a little less flavorful than I expected. Next time I would add more maple syrup and lemon juice to the dressing. Enjoyable nonetheless!
Made this yesterday. Only change I made was I used Spring Mix wirh Arugula because my son doesn’t mind some arugula mixed in, but not all arugula.
I doubled the recipe and thank God I did, because this disappeared so fast. Every morsel gone! I put on the table two small bowls with low sugar dried cranberries and glazed pecans, if anyone wanted to put some on top. I tried it as is and with cranberries and pecans, oh my, this will be in the rotation, with or without the extras! Thank you for another amazing recipe!
I’m so glad you loved the salad!
I was looking for something to do with these organic sweet potatoes & this was a hit the flavor profile was amazing, definitely going in to regular rotation, thank you
I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
I made this last night… OUTSTANDING! My avocado was at its peak so it made it 5+ 🙂 The flavors come together well. Putting this into the weekly rotation it was so good.
Hi Kelly, I’m so glad you loved this one as much as I do 🙂
I just discovered this recipe by accident since I wanted to do something with sweet potatoes. It was delicious. I replaced the avocado since the ones at home were too hard for cucumber and I added sunflower seeds instead of pepitas. I can’t wait to try it again with the avocado. Thank you ?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Well-received at two Easter gatherings. Easy to make ahead and assemble if bringing to a party.
I’m so glad it was a hit!
This looks delicious. Does this make 4 entrée size servings or serves 4 as a side dish?
Hi Whitney, I’d say 4 as a light entree (ie, lunch), or as a side dish. If I were serving it for dinner to 4, I might add bread and a soup.
I just wanted to say that tahini dressing is one of the best things i’ve had in a while. I just discovered tahini and i was looking for what to do with it. So this was perfect. I replaced the pepitas with sunflower seeds and i didn’t have feta but this still tasted awesome! Thank you
Hi Jessica, I’m so glad you loved it!
Very good, I added some chicken breast to it and it was so good, definitely will be making tHis again
Just wishing you would use volume (cups) or weight for the sweet potatoes. Two is so ambiguous when they come in such a wide range of sizes. Love the tahini dressing!
Hi Stacey, 2 medium sweet potatoes will work fine, the measurement doesn’t have to be super exact in this case.
This salad is delicious! I added the recommended pickled red onion – highly recommend.
Very delicious! I love this recipe, and I recommended it to family and friends.
I love sweet potatoe and this salad was awesome! Keep up the good work and if you want you can see some recipes in my new blog as well! Take care!
I’m always in for sweet potatoes, and as a salad, very nice and new to me too, and tahini dressing is nice too, thank you!
Tasty combo of flavors! Kids loved it too!