Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potato Harvest Salad

Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potato Salad — 🥗🧡🍂 Fall-inspired ingredients including tender sweet potatoes, juicy chicken, red onions, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds topped with a honey apple cider vinaigrette! A HEARTY and COMFORTING salad that makes a big batch perfect for planned leftovers!

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Chicken

This easy fall green salad is just what you need when you’re in the mood for something more comforting than a cold salad.

Warm juicy chicken, buttery tender sweet potatoes, and flavorful roasted red onions on top of a spring greens mix take this salad into comfort food territory.

I topped the chicken and sweet potato salad with dried cranberries and shelled pistachios. Pumpkin seeds would also be lovely here.

My Honey Apple Cider Vinaigrette is what I used to dress the salad, although any store-bought light vinaigrette or dressing such as honey mustard, Italian, or what you have on hand is fine.

Ingredients in Chicken and Sweet Potato Salad

This chicken and sweet potato recipe is made with common fridge and pantry ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Sweet potatoes
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt and pepper
• Chicken breasts
• Red onion
• Paprika
• Ground ginger
• Cardamom 
• Lettuce mix such as a spring greens mix
• Honey
• Apple cider vinegar
• Mustard
• Dried cranberries
• Shelled pistachios or pumpkin seeds

Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.

How to Make Chicken and Sweet Potato Salad

The chicken and sweet potato salad recipe starts off as a sheet pan meal and anytime I can use one pan to make a meal and have planned leftovers, I am very happy. This Sheet Pan Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Chicken recipe was a jumping off point for this harvest salad recipe I’m sharing today.

Here’s an overview of the process:

1. Start by lining a sheet pan with foil for easier cleanup, adding diced sweet potatoes, drizzling them with olive oil, seasoning with salt and pepper, and roasting them for 15 to 20 minutes. This gives them a head start in the oven so that they’ll cook through and finish when the chicken and onions are done.
2. Slide the potatoes to one side of the pan, add diced chicken breasts and red onion chunks to the other side, drizzle them with olive oil, and season them with salt and pepper. Sprinkle everything with paprika, ground ginger, and cardamon before returning the sheet pan to the oven.
3. Roast for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and the chicken is cooked through.
4. While the sheet pan is in the oven and everything is roasting away, to a small glass jar with a lid, add olive oil, honey, apple cider vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Shake vigorously to create the honey apple cider vinaigrette that you can drizzle over your salad.
5. Add your greens to a bowl, top with the juicy chicken, sweet potatoes, and red onions, sprinkle with the cranberries and nuts or seeds, add the vinaigrette, and dig in!

What to Serve with This Sweet Potato and Roasted Chicken Salad

Honey Cornbread Muffins

Cornbread Stuffing

The Best Soft and Fluffy Honey Dinner Rolls

Outback Steakhouse Wheat Bread {Copycat Recipe}

Tips for the Best Fall Salad

Mix and match the veggies. The great thing about sheet pan meals, and this salad starts off as a sheet pan meal, is that they’re really flexible.

In this particular sheet pan recipe I used sweet potatoes and red onions, but feel free to get creative with the vegetables you incorporate. Other vegetables that would be great include yellow squash, carrots, bell peppers, zucchini, and broccoli and cauliflower always roast very well.

Keep the sweet potatoes at about 1 to 1.5-inch chunks so that they cook through in the same amount of time that the chicken needs, which is only about 15-20 minutes since the pieces are bite-sized and you’re roasting in quite a hot oven.

If you have a convection oven, use it. You don’t need to alter or reduce the temperature. If you don’t have a convection oven, no sweat. Roast until everything is done to your liking and cooked through.

Save Saved Review Print

4.82 from 11 votes

Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potato Harvest Salad

By Averie Sunshine

🥗🧡🍂 Fall-inspired ingredients including tender sweet potatoes, juicy chicken, red onions, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds topped with a honey apple cider vinaigrette! A HEARTY and COMFORTING salad that makes a big batch perfect for planned leftovers!

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes minutes

Servings: 6 servings

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Equipment

• 1 Baking Sheet
• 1 Large Bowl
• 1 Small Glass Container

Ingredients 

Salad

• ▢ 2.5 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 to 1.5-inch chunks
• ▢ kosher salt, to taste
• ▢ freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• ▢ 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided; or as needed
• ▢ 1.50 to 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• ▢ 1 large red onion, cut into large chunks
• ▢ 1 teaspoon paprika
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or to taste
• ▢ 1 teaspoon cardamom, or to taste
• ▢ 12 ounces spring greens or your favorite lettuce mixture
• ▢ ½ cup dried cranberries, or to taste
• ▢ ½ cup shelled pistachio or pumpkin seeds, or to taste

Honey Apple Cider Vinaigrette

• ▢ ¼ cup olive oil
• ▢ ¼ cup honey
• ▢ ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• ▢ 2 teaspoons mustard, I like either dijon or honey mustard
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

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Instructions 

Salad:

• Preheat oven to 425F (use Convection if you have it, you don’t have to reduce the temp) and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil for easier cleanup (recommended).
• Add the sweet potatoes, drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, generously season with salt and pepper, and toss with your hands to coat evenly. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Remove sheet pan from the oven, flip and toss the sweet potatoes, and push them to one side of the sheet pan.
• To the other side of the sheet pan, add the chicken, red onion, evenly drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, generously season with salt and pepper, and toss with your hands to coat evenly.
• Evenly season everything on the sheet pan with the paprika, ginger, cardamom, and return the sheet pan to the oven and roast for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the potatoes are tender. Cooking time will vary based on the thickness of the chicken, if you used 2 full pounds, the size of your sweet potato chunks, and being that this is quite a hot oven, check starting at 15 minutes and check often so you don’t overcook the chicken which can dry out quickly. I recommend rotating your baking sheet midway through roasting to ensure even cooking, especially if you’re using a convection oven.
• Add the lettuce mixture to your bowl (either individual serving bowls or a very large family-style bowl, top with the roasted sweet potatoes, chicken, and red onions.
• Evenly sprinkle with the cranberries, nuts/seeds, and top with your favorite dressing or vinaigrette.

Honey Apple Cider Vinaigrette:

• In a small glass jar or container with a lid, add all ingredients, put the lid on and shake vigorously until combined; taste vinaigrette and tweak as necessary to taste. Drizzle over the salad and serve.

Notes

If you’re making this with the intention of planned leftovers, I recommend storing the roasted sweet potato, chicken, and red onion mixture in individual airtight plastic containers and storing in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 4 months. When you’re ready to eat, add the salad greens, cranberries, nuts or seeds, and top with the vinaigrette.

The vinaigrette will easily keep airtight for at least 10 days in the fridge. The chicken mixture will keep airtight for up to 5 days in the fridge or for up to 4 months in the freezer.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 602kcal, Carbohydrates: 64g, Protein: 30g, Fat: 26g, Saturated Fat: 4g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g, Monounsaturated Fat: 17g, Trans Fat: 0.01g, Cholesterol: 73mg, Sodium: 562mg, Potassium: 1305mg, Fiber: 8g, Sugar: 28g, Vitamin A: 27702IU, Vitamin C: 20mg, Calcium: 89mg, Iron: 3mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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More Fall Salad Ideas:

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad — This roasted sweet potato salad is tossed in a honey Dijon dressing. The sweet and savory flavors of this potato salad are to die for! 

Chickpea and Sweet Potato Bowl — A big ole round bowl full of goodness just like Buddha! The bowls are fast, EASY, naturally vegan and gluten-free! If you need a HEALTHY recipe that tastes like comfort food, this is it!

Apple, White Cheddar, and Grilled Chicken Salad – All the flavors just POP in this fast, easy, and healthy salad! The Honey-Apple Cider Vinaigrette doubles as marinade + salad dressing to save time!

Apple Cranberry Salad with Blue Cheese — All the flavors of fall in one gorgeous, hearty, and healthy salad! The easy, tart-and-sweet dressing is just bursting with flavor!

Spinach Apple Salad with Cheddar & Cranberries — The flavors just POP in this fast, easy, and healthy spinach salad! There are so many wonderful textures and flavors in every bite you can’t help but like it! 

Smoky Roasted Chickpea Salad with Buttermilk Chive Dressing — An EASY salad with smoky roasted chickpeas, vegetables, kale, and topped with homemade chive-infused buttermilk dressing!

Kale Caesar Salad with Fried Chickpeas — This isn’t a traditional Caesar salad and that’s what I love about it. I used kale rather than romaine and fried chickpeas instead of croutons.