Sweet potato peach salad

Here is another summer salad to put on your menu. This sweet potato peach salad is a combination of roasted sweet potato, nectarines, white peaches, mint, pickled onions and crunchy nuts. Perfect to spoil your taste buds, either for lunch or dinner. It can be enjoyed cold or warm.

Oh, this salad looks divine. All of these yummy things in it, such as sweet juicy peaches, refreshing mint, creamy sweet potato and crunchy nuts. But let’s not forget the quickly-pickled onion. Ah, I am drooling, just thinking of it. Wink.

As I’ve already said many times, I LOVE salads. Any kind of salads. In fact, it doesn’t have to include green leaves. Wink. The most important thing is that it tastes yummy, that it looks pretty, that it’s colourful and that it has a variety of textures of different ingredients.

What I also love (and I keep saying it over and over again) are fruits. Sweet fruits in a salad are the highlight and the surprise. Fruits make an ordinary salad special. Just to give you an idea, check out this berry butterhead lettuce salad or this beetroot kiwi salad.

Sweet peach

However, in this recipe, I picked one of the most loved summer fruits. Peach. This fruit is amazing. It’s cute, sweet, incredibly juicy, giving off a lovely aroma, it can have yellow or white flesh and it can be round or flat.

More, peach pairs great with everything. Yes, everything. For instance, besides with sweet potatoes, it goes great with meat (rosemary peach chicken skillet), in a salad a bit different than this one (raw asparagus salad with meatballs), in desserts (American pancakes or these cottage cheese peach slices) and with bacon (everything tastes better with bacon, just like this nectarine bacon salad).

As for a light crisp, I added onions. Since onions can have a bit strong flavour, I marinated them in lemon juice. I love red onions, because of their lovely deep purple exterior and snowy white inside. They can be spicy to mild in flavour. The acidity of lemon juice, not only reduces the spicy flavour but also makes them look prettier. In fact, the longer they bathe in the lemon juice, the prettier they get.

Ingredients for 2-3 portions of sweet potato peach salad:

• 1 large sweet potato (800 g) (cubed)
• 3 garlic cloves (sliced)
• 2 small red onions (sliced)
• 1 lemon
• 2 nectarines
• 2 white flat peaches
• a handful of mixed nuts (roughly chopped)
• olive oil
• vinegar
• 6-8 fresh mint leaves
• salt and pepper

To begin, preheat the oven to 200º C. Then, peel the potato and cut it into 2 cm large cubes. Peel and slice the garlic and onions as well. To marinate the onions, place them in a bowl with a flat bottom, add the juice of one lemon and some salt. Give it a quick stir and put it aside.

Furthermore, arrange the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, add the garlic, drizzle all with olive oil and put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, wash the nectarines and peaches. After pitted, cut them into small wedges or cubes. Roughly chop the nuts and rinse the mint leaves under cold water.

Finally, combine potatoes, garlic, onions (marinade included), and peaches in a salad bowl. Drizzle with some vinegar and olive oil. Gently toss and divide it between the plates.

Only when the sweet potato peach salad is topped with crunchy nuts, then it’s perfect. Wink. A perfect light delicious meal for the summer.

Enjoy!