This Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Vinaigrette is the perfect way to start your Thanksgiving meal. Roasted veggies atop a bed of baby kale and spinach topped with a sweet and tangy homemade dressing everyone is sure to love!
Growing up, we always had the traditional Thanksgiving dishes….green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and that cranberry jelly stuff that somehow always ends up everywhere except in my mouth. The first year Mike and I hosted Thanksgiving, though, we wanted to do things differently. We smoked our turkey, ditched the cranberry, and added a really yummy salad!
Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Vinaigrette
This Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Vinaigrette is one of our all-time favorites. You’ve got your butternut squash, your brussels sprouts, your pomegranates, pecans, and gorgonzola all on one plate.
Just a few tips to make this salad perfect; unless they’re super tiny, quarter your brussels sprouts. They’ll cook faster and they’ll be bite-sized, which is better for salad. I’ve used all kinds of tools to deconstruct a pomegranate, but I’ve given up on all of them. I peel those suckers out by hand. Use a plastic cutting board rather than a wooden one to save yourself some cleanup hassle.
Butternut squash is quite possibly the hardest vegetable to cut ever. Here I used precut squash, which is fine if you’re low on time and/or you aren’t the Hulk. As with anything precut though, you’re going to be sacrificing a bit of flavor (and texture) so go for the freshly cut if you can!
The dressing is easy and can be made ahead of time. I always encourage tasting and adjusting dressings to your liking. Want it sweeter? Add more maple syrup. Want it mustard-ier? More Dijon. Use extra virgin olive oil (that’s what it’s good for) and build up from there.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 cups quartered brussels sprouts
- 2 cups cubed butternut squash
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 8 cups mixed baby kale and spinach
- 6 ounces crumbled gorgonzola
- Arils of 1 pomegranate
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- ½ red onion, thinly sliced
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
- ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
- ½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF.
- Line a baking sheet with foil.
- Toss brussels sprouts and butternut squash in 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt and pepper. Line evenly on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until veggies are softened and cooked through.
- In a small bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust according to your liking.
- In a large mixing bowl, toss together kale/spinach, gorgonzola, pomegranate, pecans, onion, and cooked brussels sprouts and squash.
- Divide into 4 salad bowls and drizzle with dressing just before serving. Serve with roasted veggies hot.
- If desired, salad can be chilled and served cold.
Notes
Home Chef Tip: To save time, purchase precut butternut squash at your local grocery store.
We hope you love this Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Vinaigrette recipe from SoFabFood Contributor, Sarah from Drool Worthy Daily, as much as we do. If you enjoyed this delicious recipe, be sure to visit our Salad Section for more like it. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter so that you never miss a single recipe. For daily recipe inspiration, like us on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, and stop by our Google+ Community to see all of the amazing recipes our community members are sharing. Enjoy!
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