Sorted Food's Roasted Broccoli Salad

Recipe From: Sorted Food http://sortedfood.com/#!/roastedbroccolisalad/

I saw this recipe in the SortedFood’s video showing you how to cook broccoli three different ways and I literally tried it the next day. I liked this salad right off the bat because it reminded me of this addictive salad my aunt has been employed to bring to every family function since the dawn of time. Her salad is served cold, like a chunky cole slaw, and has a lot of naughty additions like bacon and hunks of cheese. I’ve tried to make my aunt’s version at home with turkey bacon, but it wasn’t so great, so this caught my eye immediately. This one, served hot and a little lighter on the dressing is a super delicious twist, and even a little healthier.

For anyone who knows me, my two favorite foods are roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli. Add in an onion and some garlic and I am sold. In the spirit of additions, I decided to add broccolini, and instead of using pine nuts, and what I assumed to be raisin, I used sunflower seeds and dried cranberries. And for the dressing, instead of sour cream, I only had plain greek yogurt on hand, so I used that. These substitutions were just ones that I liked, and I am going to go ahead and conjecture that any vegetable addition or swap you can think of will be just as delicious. The only thing I would caution is if the vegetables take longer to cook, you may consider par cooking them first- like you do with the sweet potatoes.  I also think that this salad can be delicious without the dressing- and also made even lighter with the addition of different spices that you enjoy.

Here is the recipe:

ROASTED BROCCOLI SALAD

Ingredients:

1 red onion

1 clove of garlic

1 head of broccoli

1 medium sweet potato

a handful of pine nuts (I used sunflower seeds)

a handful of sultanas (I used dried cranberries)

Olive oil to coat the vegetables

4 tbsp of sour cream (I used plain greek yogurt)

splash of milk

few sprigs of fresh tarragon

1 tsp of Dijon mustard

½ a tsp of celery salt

Directions:

-preheat an oven to 180ºC and bring a pan of salted water to the boil.  (Since I go by Fahrenheit, it translated to 350 degrees, but I found that this wasn’t quite hot enough to roast in the time frame, so I did my usual 425 degree Fahrenheit and it was perfect)

-peel and dice the sweet potato into small cubes (1cm x 1cm).

-blanch the sweet potato in the water for 2-3 minutes just to start the cooking process and soften them, then drain.

-trim the broccoli into small florets, then peel and slice the onion and garlic.

-throw the onion, garlic, broccoli, potato, pine nuts and sultanas into a non-stick roasting tin and toss with the oil.

-season well and splash over a small glass of water.

-bake it in the oven for 20 minutes.

-whisk together the sour cream, mustard, celery salt and chopped tarragon.

-splash in just enough milk to give you a consistency that is good for drizzling.

-remove the baking tray from the oven, transfer the contents to a salad bowl and serve immediately with the dressing.

My favorite part of this recipe overall was the tarragon. I had never used it before and I went for it really confidently and it worked out really well!

I hope you have the same experience I did and happy cooking!