Roasted Root Vegetable and Cashew Salad

Lure loved ones to the dinner table with the enticing aromas of this roasted root vegetable and cashew salad. Carrots, potatoes, and parsnips are roasted to bring out caramelization, then cooled. After that, pour a yogurt based dressing over the root veggies before sprinkling a healthy dose of cashews and feta cheese on top. The final result is a beautiful salad packed with nutrients and flavor!

Roasted Root Vegetables Make The Best Base

Salads come in all colors, leaf shapes, and textures. This one relies on the earthy taste of potatoes, parsnips, and carrots to provide a unique experience. The addition of arugula adds a nice bitter, yet magical bite. Especially once you add in the fixings of cashews and feta cheese! Using root vegetables as the foundation makes it easy to build up the flavor and color with all of the other ingredients.

Root vegetables are bulbous growths that either grow underground or at the base of the plant. Many of them, like potatoes, serve more potassium than a medium sized banana. Parsnips in particular, contain loads of vitamin C and K, and they bring a certain je ne sais quois to the party with their nutty undertones. Since most people don’t typically consume parsnips on a regular basis, identifying them can be fun.

Shake Up The Way You Dress Your Salad

Roasted root vegetable salad is made to taste great when other elements such as dairy and cashews are added. Yogurt lemon dressing provides the necessary acid, while feta cheese and cashews provide just the right amount of fat. Comparatively, cashews have a slightly buttery, sweet taste. Their spongey yet firm bite is most likely the reason for their popularity in curries and other savory stews.

Another fun fact concerning cashews is that the nut actually forms at the base of a rather large apple. The cashew fruit, although not popular in the U.S., will most likely find its way into our culinary hearts very soon. Because the skin of the fruit is super-fragile, you might need to travel to Brazil to sample a fresh cashew apple.

Getting back to salad, though. Most definitely, this salad is not a one-note experience. Arugula’s brightness adds the required green element, rounding out all the flavors in a very unique way. This is not your regular ranch-dressed dinner salad!

How To Serve This Root Vegetable Salad

If you are looking for more variety on holiday tables or a little something extra to go with protein, then this dish makes a great choice. I personally love taking roasted root vegetable salads to potlucks, because those are great events to get friends to venture beyond their comfort zone. Because this dish yields plenty, you can also hoard it all for yourself and make it lunch for a week. I play that card quite often!