I love sweet potatoes, but they do take a fairly long time to cook. Too long to make them on a work night. I was searching for something to do with the sweet potatoes in our box, when I came across several different recipes for a southwest salad. I decided to do some prep ahead work over the weekend, so that I could get dinner ready quickly during the week. Since the salad required cooked and chilled foods, this became the ultimate opportunity to cook ingredients ahead and have a great dinner during the week.
The recipe I used for the dressing is adapted from this recipe from Hispanic Kitchen. It was less spicy than I anticipated, which was actually a good thing!
Southwest Chicken and Sweet Potato Salad
Recipe type: Main, Salad
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 1 pound sweet potatoes
- 1 cup olive oil, divided
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 ears corn, husks removed
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoon ground cumin, divided
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 6 cups lettuce
- 1 tomato, chopped
- ½ cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained.
- 2 limes
- 1 jalapeno pepper, coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- handful of fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- Peel sweet potatoes and cut lengthwise into ½ inch thick slices. Brush the sweet potatoes with ¼ cup of olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
- Heat grill to medium heat. Grill sweet potatoes until cooked through, turning once. At the same time, grill the corn, turning frequently. This will take about 15 minutes.
- Combine chili powder and 1 teaspoon of cumin. Rub over chicken breasts. Grill chicken breasts until cooked through, turning once. (About 10 minutes.)
- Let sweet potatoes, corn, and chicken cool. Cut corn kernels from cobs. Thinly slice chicken.
- While everything is cooling, make the dressing. Zest one of the limes, and juice both limes. In a blender, combine lime zest and juice, jalapeno pepper, garlic, cilantro, and remaining teaspoon of cumin. Blend until smooth. With blender running, drizzle in the remaining ¾ cup of olive oil.
- The above steps can all be done ahead, with everything refrigerated until serving time.
- Divide lettuce among plates. Top with tomato, cooked sweet potatoes, cooked corn, black beans, and sliced chicken. Drizzle dressing over.