Purple sweet potato crumble salad

Quick, sweet and delicious

This purple sweet potato crumble was one of my ultimate accidental recipe discoveries. The purple sweet potato actually has a white skin. Hence, for the purpose of this post I will refer to it as purple sweet potato rather than white sweet potato, which is what you see when you are at the fruit market.

It all started with me wanting to make a sweet potato mash and I was absolutely certain I had some orange sweet potato in the pantry, so I didn’t get any from the shops that day. I got home only to realize that I only had the purple sweet potato but I thought it should be fine, I’ll just substitute one for the other.

I usually use the microwave to cook the orange sweet potato so I did the same with the purple sweet potato. Once I started scooping the flesh out I realized it wasn’t as moist as the orange sweet potato and it was actually quite crumbly. Automatically I thought of the Greek style potato salad I usually make and found most of the ingredients in the fridge/pantry.

So I mixed all the elements together and another accidental surprise occurred once I poured the lemon. The purple sweet potato turned PINK!! Oh how I love Science, it was just like magic!

A side dish in 12min from start to finish! 

One of the fastest sides you can ever make, very substantial and the whole family will love it. I had a few taste testers to make sure I wasn’t excited about this for no reason and everyone loved it. Mind you they did initially think this salad was made up of beetroot haha 

I have made it a few times so far with a couple of variations each time so read my notes for more hints. 

5 from 4 votes

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Purple sweet potato crumble salad

Prep Time

2 mins

Cook Time

9 mins

Cooling time

1 min

Total Time

11 mins

 

Course: Salad

Servings: 6

Author: Eleni Georges

Ingredients

• 1 kg purple sweet potatoes, see notes
• ¼ cup parsley, chopped (about 5 stalks)
• ¼ small red onion, diced
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork all around, approximately 20 times, and push the fork in as much as you can. Place them both in a microwave for 9min and let them cool for a minute or so before handling them to avoid burning your hands.
2. If the sweet potatoes are large in diameter after the 9min and cooling, cut them in half lengthwise. Grab a bowl and scoop out the flesh on either ends, because they cook faster that the middle part. Pierce the remaining flesh of the sweet potato and place them back in the microwave for another minute or until you can easily scoop it out.
3. While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the rest of the ingredients. Once the potatoes are cooked and cooled a bit, scoop out all the flesh in a bowl. You will notice that as you scoop out the flesh the sweet potato actually crumbles on its own or you may use the spoon to break it up.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well before serving. You may eat it warm straightaway or cold is good too.

Recipe Notes

1kg is usually two large sweet potatoes. Pick the ones that are slender and long, not the wider ones to reduce the cooking time. Also pick ones that look as similar as possible so that they cook evenly at the same time.

If the purple sweet potato is not as fresh because you have forgotten about it amongst the rest of the vegetables the last two weeks, like I have done before, then the less time it needs to cook. It only took 7min in the microwave in that case.

I’ve used green spring onion before as well and that was really nice too. But you can use whatever you have at home more often.  

Adding capers to this salad is also really if you like acidity in salads.