Pecan, Apple & Sweet Potato Salad

I get excited about salad, and around Thanksgiving, I think it is the perfect opportunity to try something new with your salad game, and that's what this does with roasted sweet potatoes, candied pecans, apple, all the flavors of the season, right in a salad that is gonna be the star of your Thanksgiving meal, so let's make it. There are four steps to making this delicious Thanksgiving salad, which, by the way, can be eaten any time of the year. The first one is to prepare your sweet potatoes that we are gonna roast. Now, I have one sweet potato, and it is from the garden. I actually ran over to the garden shed right before this video so I could pull out this beautiful sweet potato that I harvested probably about a month ago now, and I am just chopping it up in a nice dice. It's nothing too fancy. I'm not straightening out all sides so it's like a perfect square. I'm just dicing it up so it's in a nice, edible, kinda bite-sized piece. Now, if you follow me, you know what do I love. I love any time I can roast a vegetable because, to me, it adds flavor without any work, so I'm putting these right onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, and I'm going to put some olive oil right over them, and the important thing here is the olive oil helps them roast, helps them caramelize, adds flavor, but the important part, get it all over them. So use your hands, just toss it together, and now we're just gonna salt and pepper them. So I like to make sure they're spread out into somewhat of an even layer. This is just gonna make sure they roast evenly all over, and my big key for roasting, and I say this every time, if you have, and if you don't, it's okay, if you have convection setting on your oven, this is the time to use it. That just turns your oven into a large air fryer so it will evenly roast and brown all sides. So make sure you season these well with a good dose of kosher salt. We're gonna put on some fresh cracked black pepper, and then just get these caramelized. With the potatoes roasting, we can do step two, which is candying some pecans in a really good flavor. So what we're gonna do is take our pecan halves, which are just raw, beautiful pecans of this season, and we're melting butter. I am doing it in a nonstick skillet just because it's easier to clean. And so once that butter is melted, we can add the pecans right in, and then a whole bunch of really good ingredients. So we're gonna do some maple syrup. I think you know why, because it's gonna add that nice kind of candy, but flavor to it. Then a little bit of brown sugar, which more gives that kind of coating that makes you think of a little bit more of a shell, which is kind of a nice coating to have on a candied pecan. A little bit of smoked chipotle powder. So it has a little bit of spice, a little bit of smokiness, just to add a hint of flavor. Some salt, of course, and then I like to put in just some fresh thyme. So I just like to strip these leaves right off that stem, throw them right in, and this just kind of adds an element of freshness to it that I really like. And now we're just gonna let these kind of slowly cook together. And honestly, the way I usually do it is I just sit and swirl and toss the pan until they're nice and coated. If you haven't made candied pecans on the stove, it's super easy. What I want you to see is that everything melted, and we're starting to get some bubbles. We're doing it over medium heat. You don't wanna go too hot. You don't wanna burn anything, but stir it constantly or toss it because what that's gonna do is make sure that we're not burning any of the nuts or the sugars on the bottom. Keep it moving for a few minutes until you can tell there's a nice glazed coating, and then I'll show you how we just pour them out and let them cool. I'm bringing these off the heat. They're just beginning to wanna smoke, which you don't want them to. So make sure to put them right on your parchment paper because this is what it's gonna do is make sure they don't stick to anything. And then as they cool, you'll be able to pick them up easily. And if you were here, what you would smell is this amazing kind of smoky from the chipotle, but you get the brown sugar notes that are caramelized now. You get toasted the pecans, and now they're just gonna fully cool. This to me is a step you can do for any salad to elevate it. When it comes to Thanksgiving, having these extra moments, I mean, you need to. I'm just gonna spread them out. So now we're gonna do step three. So we did one, two, and now three, which is make the dressing, super easy. We're gonna put everything in this bowl. I've been mincing up some garlic and some shallot, which my garlic, I like to have minced up just because you wanna make sure that it's nice and fine. You don't want anything too thick in there. Now, what I will say, if garlic for you is too much, some people think raw garlic, they can't handle it, and that's fair. Some people can't handle it. You can either leave it out or you could squeeze some citrus on it or just put the apple cider vinegar we're gonna use right on it. And what that does is let it sit for like 20 minutes. It tempers it a little bit. We're gonna add some minced shallot. I love shallot. Sweetness, not near as strong as just onion, which I think is really essential. We're gonna do a little bit of Dijon mustard. It's gonna add that creaminess. It's gonna add kind of that flavor that really balances everything out. We're gonna add some salt, super important here, and some pepper. I love fresh cracked pepper. It just smells so good. Some apple cider vinegar. That's gonna be our acid. I also think it works well because we're using apple in the salad. Of course, we need a little bit of sweetness. It's seasonal. We're gonna use some maple syrup. You could do honey, but the maple really does add a nice touch. And then we of course need, in any vinaigrette, olive oil. So make sure to put your olive oil in and then we'll whisk it. The whisking part, sometimes people like to drizzle in the olive oil. You can do that. They think it emulsifies it quicker and it can, but the thing is if you just whisk it well or put it into a jar and shake it really well, it's gonna get to that same product in the end. So as you can see, do you notice how halfway whisking, you're starting to see the change? You see some of the oil that isn't completely worked in. That's the beauty of this. And as you keep whisking, those oil droplets work with that mustard and create almost this creaminess. Do you see how it completely changes? And that's what I love. So instantly, I always think you should check. Is it a good dressing as far as balance goes? Is the seasoning right? To do that, I take just a little bit of the lettuce, just a little bit. Just dip a little bit in. It's good. You can always add more salt or pepper if you want to for your personal taste. This is ready to go. We're gonna get the potatoes out of the oven and we're gonna have one of the best salads yet. I pulled the potatoes out. You know what's nice about this is, the sweet potatoes, the nuts, the dressing, make it all the day or two before and that's fine. What I'm doing now is just chopping up my lettuce. I like to use that nice crunchy romaine. And this is where you can kind of just have fun with how you display it. I either like a big platter or a shallow bowl. I think that always looks nicer and I think it just presents it better so you can kind of display everything really nicely. And I always, when I'm making a salad, will dress the greens a little bit first and more later after I finish it. But I like to put some of our dressing, I just poured it into a measuring cup so it's easier to just put a little bit on and then we can toss it if we want before we put everything else on. I think tossing it first just allows some of that dressing to be nicely distributed before you kind of have a presentation more. So we are gonna put an apple on it. You know, you can use whatever your favorite apple is. I love a honey crisp apple because they're reliably both sweet with some slight tartness for texture and they have that, not texture, but for flavor. But then they also have that perfect kind of texture, I think, that is so essential with an apple. It just gives you that, just that impact of beautiful flavor right away. And you know what? Thanksgiving is the time to just have that extra special thing, because I'm gonna admit it, sometimes honey crisp, they are expensive apples. So I don't always have them, but definitely once in a while. And I just like to fan out some of the pieces right on it just so you can kind of see them right at the top. And that's the reason I like to dress those greens first is so you can see everything as it's coming. And you can kind of just, look how pretty that is as you're fanning it out. It's gorgeous. And this is where you have fun. Now, obviously this is for all of it, but I'm just going to, for the sake of time, kind of just dress it as I would nicely. If you're doing the whole thing, you're gonna want to make sure you kind of get everything in there. But look at how these beautiful pieces, these are now nice and crisp. And let me just tell you something. I could eat all these in one sitting. They are so good. They have so much flavor. They're delicious, honestly. And then some of that crumbled feta right on top. It has that tanginess. It has that flavor that's both briny, but also complements everything else like the apple. And then at the end, always, if you want to, just put a little bit more dressing that will always, you know, acidulate the apples so they don't just have brown spots if you don't want them to, if it's going to sit a while. Make sure those apples have a little bit of that dressing that will really make sure they don't turn brown. And here you go. Your perfect Thanksgiving salad. And what I love about it is it has seasonal aspects with the pecans, with the sweet potatoes, but then it just kind of also has like that heartiness. So it eats almost like a meal. This is so good. I'm a salad freak. I love them. I could eat a salad of some form every day. When you add in elements like a roasted sweet potato, those candied pecans, apple, it's a meal. And what's great is at Thanksgiving, it's going to be a standout and it's going to make everyone excited to take some salad. They're not just going to be like, do I have to? No, everyone's going to say I get to, and that's the exciting part. So get excited about salad. That's what all this is about. It's about finding something that you're excited about. And that's what this salad is going to do. So share this video around so other people can see that Thanksgiving salad does not have to be a second thought. It has to be the first thought and it can be easy and delicious. And that's what this is all about. Check my website, wyseguide.com for this whole recipe, everything you're going to need and each of these four steps to have this perfect salad. Happy Thanksgiving.