Warm Sweet Potato Salad
Sweet potatoes are easy to prepare, versatile and tremendously good for you.
Sweet potatoes contain a ton of nutrition and can help reduce inflammation. Containing 400% of your RDA of Vitamin A per day, they also contain B vitamins, Vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Natural compounds called carotenoids give sweet potatoes their rich color. Carotenoids are also antioxidants, which means they have the power to protect your cells from day-to-day damage. Sweet potatoes are also a great source of energy and fiber.
In the United States, most tubers sold as yams are actually members of the sweet potato family. Your Garnets, Jewels, the “yams” with the rich orange flesh and reddish-brown exterior, are, botanically, sweet potatoes. In fact, it’s quite likely that the vast majority of people have never tasted a true yam. The reason for this discrepancy is simple marketing: back in the mid-20th century, when orange-fleshed sweet potatoes were introduced into the United States, they were labeled “yams” to avoid confusion with the common white-fleshed sweet potato Americans were already enjoying.
Sweet potatoes are native to South America, where they were domesticated at least 5000 years ago. They’re also common in Polynesia, and radio carbon dating of sweet potato remains in the Cook Islands places them at 1000 AD, with most researchers figuring they date back to at least 700 AD. The Peruvian Quechua word for sweet potato is kumar, while it’s called the remarkably similar kumara in Polynesia, prompting speculation that early South American voyagers actually introduced the tuber to the South Pacific.
Real yams hail from the Dioscorea family of perennial herbaceous vines and include dozens of varieties, some of which grow to over eight feet long and weigh nearly two hundred pounds.
Since most of us will be coming across sweet potatoes either disguised as yams or labeled correctly, let’s direct our attention to the various properties of the different sweet potato varieties.
The Classic Sweet Potato
This is probably what most of us picture when we think of a sweet potato - light, tan skin, slightly yellow interior. Creamy, and slightly sweet.
Yam
Orange-fleshed, red/brown/orange skinned sweet potato masquerading as a yam. They're even more common than the standard sweet potato, sweeter with a bit more water content.
The Okinawan Purple Sweet Potato
White-skinned, with a brilliant purple interior that becomes velvety smooth and incredibly sweet when baked. The purple pigment is due to the vast numbers of anthocyanins - the very same beneficial antioxidant pigments that provide blueberries their brilliant color and health benefits. Several studies show potential benefits to purple sweet potato anthocyanins: suppression of mouse brain inflammation, alleviation of brain aging, reduction in cognitive deficits, inflammation and oxidative damage in aging mouse brains, potential suppression of neurodegenerative cell death, as in Alzheimer's, as well as protection against acetaminophen-induced liver damage in mice.
Regardless of variety, sweet potatoes are delicious, they’re eaten everywhere, and have a lengthy tradition of being consumed by healthy people. I eat sweet potatoes at least once a week and sometimes twice. I love them best roasted, also steamed and mashed, and prepared either sweet or savory. It doesn’t matter. I’m constantly looking for ways to prepare them.
Over the weekend, I put together a sweet potato “salad” which included a little bit of bacon, some bell peppers and spinach. The crunch of some green onions on top and the addition of some chopped fresh cilantro took it over the top.
I loved it. Hope you do, too.
Warm Sweet Potato Salad
I have a high powered burner outside next to the BBQ and when I don’t feel like having the smell of bacon in the house, I’ll cook it there. Here I have my tongs and plate with paper towel to drain the bacon, my favorite Himalayan pink sea salt, my bacon cut into little chunks, my bell peppers and sweet potatoes cubed, and my minced garlic.
Ingredients:
4 slices of uncured bacon, sliced in lardons
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed into 1” cubes
Salt and pepper
1/2 each red and yellow bell pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bag of spinach, washed
Chipotle pepper dust or cayenne pepper, to taste
A sprinkle of lime juice
Chopped cilantro and green onions as garnish
Directions:
I find a cast iron pan is the best for this. Crisp the bacon, drain on paper towels, leaving some fat in the pan. Place the cubed sweet potatoes in the bacon fat, add salt and pepper, saute for 15-20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Remove from pan. Add a little more bacon fat or if you’re out, some olive oil. Heat the oil, then add the bell peppers. Cook for 5-8 minutes, add garlic, saute 2-3 minutes more taking care not to brown or burn the garlic. Add the spinach. By now, your pan is really hot, so turn it off. The residual heat in the pan will be enough to wilt the spinach. Leave in for about 3 minutes while you assemble your salad.
Place everything you’ve cooked so far in a bowl, and continue adding the remaining ingredients: go easy on the chipotle or cayenne powder. Add a little, taste it, see if you need more. Add more salt and pepper if needed. Sprinkle on the lime juice, chopped cilantro and green onions. Toss gently. Serve. Delicious with BBQ’d chicken.
