A simple bowl of goodness. This quinoa and sweet potato salad has so many flavors, every little bite is amazing. It has beans, dried cranberries and pine nuts in it and the garlic dressing makes it truly special.
Garlic is wonderful and roasted garlic is even better! So you can imagine how wonderful this dressing tastes. It works so well with the sweet potato and quinoa, plus the dried cranberries add a brilliant sweetness to the salad, the parsley and celery make it fresh. I just don’t wanna eat anything else in my life anymore. And you know what’s the best? The dressing is a great spread for toast, too. Make a larger amount of it without added water and keep it in a jar in the fridge. So delicious!
Quinoa and Sweet Potato Salad with Roasted Garlic Dressing
- Total Time: 40 mins
- Yield: 3 1x
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1/2 cup of quinoa
- 1 medium sweet potato
- 1 can of kidney beans
- 1/3 cup of dried cranberries
- 1 celery stalk
- 2 large handful of parsley
- 1 handful of pine nuts
- cinnamon
- For the dressing:
- 3–4 large cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup of soaked cashews
- 1/4 cup of soaked sunflower seeds
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1 lime
- salt, pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C. Cut sweet potato into small cubes and place on a baking tray with the unpeeled garlic cloves. Sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon and olive oil on the cubes and bake for 30-40 minutes.
- Cook the quinoa in double amount of water. Let it cool a bit then add to a big salad bowl. Add drained kidney beans, sliced celery, chopped parsley, cranberries, pine nuts and baked sweet potatoes and mix everything well together.
- For the dressing place soaked cashews and sunflower seeds, juice of a lime, mustard, salt, pepper and peeled roasted garlic cloves in a food processor and blend until smooth. Adjust consistency with water if needed. Serve the salad with the dressing on top. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
Oh Evi, this looks delicious! I love garlic so I know that I’d love this dressing. Pinned!
Thank you, Linda! Garlic dressings are always so good 🙂
Hey Evi! Love this delicious quinoa salad! The sweet potatoes, crunch of the pine nuts, and kidney beans paired with that cashew garlic dressing sounds soooo good! That creamy dressing is amazing itself! Love creamy cashew! Thank you for this Evi! <3
Aww, thank you, Traci! You wrote such an amazing description here, I should use this one instead of my stupid rambling above 🙂
This salad looks divine.. and so healthy too. What’s really making me want to create the recipe though is that dressing. I love the flavour of roasted garlic!
Me too, Thalia! Roasted garlic is one of my favorite snacks, but I simply love it in any dish…so much!!!
Oh my… Evi… this dish looks so good! I have to try this dressing, love garlic and roasted garlic even more 😀
Thanks, Bianca!
I could eat roasted garlic anytime, I am kind of crazy about it 🙂
I love quinoa and sweet potatoes so much + the combination of pine nuts and cashews in the dressing is such a win – win situation!
I love quinoa and sweet potatoes so much + the combination of pine nuts and cashews in the dressing is such a win – win situation!
Me too! I always eat sweet potatoes, and I especially love them in salads 🙂
Oh my gosh, I need this dressing right now!! I love roasted garlic and I love fun dressings like this! This salad is right up my alley 🙂
I am in love with this dressing too! 🙂
I love sweet potatoes and that roasted garlic dressing looks wonderful!
Thank you, Christin! Sweet potatoes are my favorites too 🙂
So happy to have discovered your blog today, I’m already addicted to your gorgeous recipes and photos! Roasted garlic is one of my absolute favorite things to cook with, this salad is totally calling to me.
Thank you so much, Shannon! I’m so happy you like the blog 🙂
Roasted garlic is one of my favorites too, I could eat it anytime with anything!
I absolutely love this recipe; I have made it multiple times already! As of now, however, I am trying to shed a few pounds–without giving up my favorite quinoa sweet potato salad, of course! Would you happen to know the serving size and calories for this dish?
Thank you!
Hi Laura,
I am so happy you like the salad, it’s also one of my favorites!
I’m not a dietitian or nutritionist, so I can’t tell you the exact serving size of the dish. But you can check the calories for example here, you can also play there with the serving size: http://www.caloriecount.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php/
You can add some greens to the salad too, that’s a great way to cut down on calories. Spinach or arugula would taste great in the salad! And raw shredded zucchini is also delicious in it.
Or make the dressing a bit lighter by adding more water or lime/lemon juice to it.
I hope I could help a bit!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 🙂