CARLY Kale, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Salad

When Louisa sent me this, I had just finished a big dinner… otherwise I think I would have immediately made this salad. How delicious and healthy does it look!?! I love having kale salads when I’m at restaurants or picking one up from my favorite salad place, but for some reason, I’ve never made my own at home. This one might just be too good to pass up.

Kale, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Salad

Guest post by Living Lou

Now that you know my tips for packing The Best Lunch Ever, I’m back with the perfect recipe for you to bring to work or school this week. I’ve mentioned before that more often than not, my lunches include some kind of salad. Today I’m sharing a recipe that uses two of my favorite ingredients, which also happen to be a couple of the healthiest veggies out there, kale and sweet potatoes.

What I love about this salad is that if you can do a bit of prep the day or night before, in just 20 minutes, you’ll have the start of a few lunches ready for the week that you can grab and go, in the morning. The prep involved here is cooking quinoa and roasting the sweet potatoes.

I always like to cook a batch of quinoa on a Sunday or Monday and eat it throughout the week, it’s especially useful for lunches. If you’re not a fan of quinoa, you could switch it out for something like brown rice or lentils. The salad dressing here uses hummus as a base which will give you an extra dose of protein to keep your energy levels up throughout the day.

Kale, Quinoa and Sweet Potato Salad (for 1)

For potatoes:

1 sweet potato, diced (about 2 cups)

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp chili powder

¼ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450F.

Toss sweet potatoes with olive oil, sprinkle with chili powder, cinnamon and salt. Tossing to coat.

Dump onto a baking sheet, in a single layer.

Roast for 10 minutes, toss sweet potatoes, and roast for another 10 minutes.

For salad:

1 cup chopped kale

½ cup cooked quinoa

½ cup roasted sweet potatoes (recipe above)

1-2 tbsp hummus salad dressing

Directions:

Combine salad ingredients.

Drizzle with hummus salad dressing.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a step-by-step guide of how I actually pack my lunch, so stay tuned! In the meantime, check out my Instagram for more lunchtime inspiration.

xoxo