Looking for a crazy simple recipe to make this week that is healthy and fool-proof? Look no further! This German Harvest Salad is packed full of roasted vegetables, sits on top a bed of fresh spinach and kale, and is drizzled with an oil free mustard dressing.
A Recipe From The Past
This recipe was inspired from my college days. I went to Michigan State University (Go Green!) and when I first moved in there was a dorm hall called Snyder-Phillips that was known for AMAZING food. When I started as a freshmen it had just gotten renovated, and the cafeteria was known all over campus. It had a pasta station, panini station, fresh salad station (with a ‘salad-of-the-day’ special), pizza bar, and so much more. It had more options than any other cafeteria at the time. I remember my friends and I would make special trips to go out of our way and eat there, that’s how much we loved it!
Anyways, there was one “special” salad that I remember as being particularly good. It was called a German Harvest Salad – it had lots of fresh roasted vegetables mixed in, and it came with a unique mustard dressing on top. It was my favorite “specialty salad” that this cafeteria made. I don’t know why, but for some reason I was craving it this week, and decided to recreate it!
German Harvest Salad
This salad is made with a lot of hearty root vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes. You could use any variety, but I decided to use rainbow carrots and potatoes (like the cafeteria did) because it makes the salad so colorful and fun! That was one of the things I remember liking about this salad – how colorful it was. I also used green beans, onions, tomatoes, and snow peas. Apparently asparagus is also very popular in German cuisine, so I think adding asparagus next time could be another way to make this salad even more “German!”
I was interested in using a lot of root vegetables in the salad this time, but in the future I could see myself experimenting and adding other kinds of roasted vegetables too like asparagus, cauliflower, and/or Brussels Sprouts. Any kind of roasted vegetable combination would taste great with this salad, especially with the mustard dressing.
Oil Free Mustard Dressing
Besides the vegetables used for roasting, I think the next most German aspect of this salad comes from the mustard dressing. True to my take on healthy eating, I wanted to come up with a salad dressing that is oil free! This dressing is healthy, light, and has only 4 ingredients!
That’s it! Mustard, apple cider vinegar, pepper, and maple syrups (plus a little water) make up the only ingredients of this dressing. Simply add everything to your blender and blend until everything is mixed well.
The recipe I used below makes enough so that you could continue to use this dressing throughout the week. If you would like to only have enough dressing for one meal, just take all the dressing ingredient measurements and cut them in half.
German Harvest Salad
After you bake the potatoes, carrots, and green beans for 30 minutes at 350 F simply assemble everything on a plate and server!
As you can see from the ingredients below, I sort of winged-it when it came to measurements for the vegetables. I just used enough green beans, potatoes, and carrots to fill one large baking tray with. I arranged them at random on my sheet and baked until they looked soft (no oil needed, simply wash and bake).
While your oven veggies are roasting, you can chop the onions, cherry tomatoes, and thaw the snow peas in the microwave. Simple right? I know that there’s not a whole lot to this recipe, but I’m pretty excited about it still, because I think it replicates the German Harvest Salad from my memory pretty closely! It’s light, healthy, very filing, and perfect for dinner or lunch.
I hope you enjoy this German Harvest Salad, and oil free mustard salad dressing!
German Harvest Salad
Ingredients
Oil Free Mustard Dressing
- 1/2 cup of dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon of maple syrup
- Fresh ground pepper to taste
- 6 tablespoons of water
Salad Ingredients
- Mix of kale and spinach leaves
- Handful of baby rainbow carrots*
- Handful of chopped green beans*
- Handful of rainbow potatoes*
- 1/4 of an onion chopped
- 1/4 cup of frozen snow peas
- 3-4 cherry tomatoes
Instructions
- Add all of the salad ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.*
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Spread the carrots, green beans, and potatoes on a baking pan and bake for 30 minute or until the vegetables are soft (no oil, plain on a sheet is fine!)
- While those veggies bake, chop the onion and tomatoes, and thaw the peas in the microwave
- When the veggies in the oven are done, assemble your salad!
Notes
