Bacon and Sweet Potato Salad

This bacon and sweet potato salad is ready in 30 minutes. But this isn’t a raw vegetable salad — all the ingredients need to be cooked. But it’s all easy cooking, don’t worry.

How is it a salad if all the ingredients are cooked? Well, if you think that all salads contain nothing but raw vegetables, you’re thinking of garden salad which is only one kind of salad.

By definition, a salad is any dish that doesn’t require any cooking AFTER all the ingredients have been tossed together or arranged in a bowl or on a plate. So, yes, a salad can have ingredients that had all been cooked beforehand.

Let me add even more confusion. A salad can be an appetizer, a main course, a side dish or even a dessert. A main course salad often (but not always) contains meat or other form of protein. If you need an example of a dessert salad, think of ambrosia.

So, there. The world of salad is a huge one and raw vegetables don’t always take center stage.

Bacon and Sweet Potato Salad

Recipe by Connie Veneracion

This main course salad benefits tremendously from putting bacon fat to good use.

If you don’t have prepared herbed croutons, throw in day-old bread in a pan, drizzle in excess rendered bacon fat, add olive oil if there's not enough bacon fat, sprinkle with salt and dried herbs, toss until toasted and crisp, and you have herbed croutons.

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 30 mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine International

Servings 2 people

Print recipe

Ingredients

  

• 2 sweet potatoes peeled and cut into one-inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 150 grams belly bacon (three to four rashers)

For the honey lime dressing

• juice of two limes
• extra virgin olive oil enough to equal the volume of lime juice
• honey to taste
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste

To complete the salad

• 2 cups herbed croutons
• parsley snipped

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 375F.
• Toss the sweet potatoes with the salt and olive oil.
• Spread in a baking pan.
• Arrange the bacon rashers on a rack and place the rack.
• In the oven, position the rack with the bacon above the tray with the sweet potatoes (to allow the drippings to moisten and flavor the sweet potatoes).
• While the sweet potatoes and bacon cook, make the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together.
• Place the baked sweet potatoes in a bowl.
• Cut the bacon into half-inch strips.
• Add the bacon and croutons to the sweet potatoes and toss a few times.
• Drizzle with the honey lime dressing and toss.
• Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Notes

Updated from a recipe originally published in October 16, 2013

Keyword Bacon, Salad, Sweet potatoes

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