Roast Vegetable, Olive and Beetroot Salad

A salad in winter? Hell yeah!

I admit I eat more soup in the winter and more salad in the summer, I'm sure everyone is the same. I'm eating lots of tasty homemade soup just now, but today I'm working from home, it's cold and dreich outside, but it's cosy inside and I was craving salad so I was kind to myself and made this roast vegetable, olive and beetroot salad. It was yum!

As much as I like a salad in the winter I do think it should be either a warm salad or one that's a bit more substantial like this one. What do you think?

For this salad I roasted red pepper, onion and courgette, but there are so many other vegetables you can roast. Many more than I have ever tried. Here are some of my old favourites.

12 Frequently Roasted Vegetables

These are the vegetables I regularly roast to serve on a salad, in pasta or pasta salad, on pizza, in a bake (adding chopped tomatoes, stock, spices and beans), to toss through grains, to layer through a vegetable lasagne or to add to sandwiches and wraps. Yes they are super versatile.

1. Red, yellow and orange bell peppers (not green, I hate the green, they are so bitter)
2. Courgette (also known as zucchini)
3. Aubergine (also known as eggplant)
4. Red onions
5. Mushrooms
6. Tomatoes (I add these near to the end of cooking)
7. Sweetcorn (I also add this at the end of cooking)
8. Sweet potato
9. Beetroot
10. Butternut squash
11. Potatoes (who doesn't love roast potatoes?)
12. Parsnips (I used to roast these in honey, but now I use agave nectar, so the edges caramelise)

For this 'generous for one' salad I roasted one courgette, one red bell pepper and one red onion. I could have added other vegetables, but I had these in my salad drawer and I wanted to add a few other ingredients for a variety of flavours and textures.

I started with a layer of mixed salad leaves, topped with the roasted vegetables, halved pickled beetroot (for a bit of piquancy), pitted green olives and sundried tomatoes. I dressed the salad with a pesto and balsamic vinegar dressing which was rather tasty. 

The pesto is from Sacla, their free from one which I always have a stock of. I do love homemade pesto, but this was a search-in-the-fridge type of recipes, so the jarred sauce was perfect.

Much More Veg by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Now I mentioned frequently roasted vegetables, but you can roast pretty much any vegetable, well you can according to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, who says in his new book Much More Veg, ".... if you love a vegetable, you'll love it more roasted. Or at the very least love it differently .... ". 

He recommends trying all vegetables roasted as well as some salad vegetables and not forgetting fruit. He even says that roast cucumbers are amazing. Some vegetables are simply roasted with a little oil, salt and pepper and others he recommends roasting with spices.

It's an amazing book. I have been wanting it for a while and finally treated it to myself this morning after various hints before Christmas failed miserably. 

In the book Hugh shows us how to make vegetables the star of the show and all the recipes are vegan. It is an amazing book and I can't wait to start cooking from it. It's the most exciting cookbook purchase I've made for years.  We all need to be eating more vegetables than we do and this book is our best starting point. Everyone should have this book. And no I wasn't sent it, I bought it with my own hard-earned cash.

12 More Vegetables to Roast

Be adventurous! Try roasting a bigger variety of vegetables.
Here are a few more vegetables for you to try:

1. Broccoli
2. Cauliflower
3. Asparagus
4. Carrots
5. Celeriac
6. Little gem lettuce, cut into wedges lengthwise
7. Savoy cabbage (wedges)
8. Baby Leeks
9. Fennel
10. Sprouts
11. Kale
12. Corn on the cob (cut into 3 or 4 sections)

Yield: 1 generous saladAuthor: Jacqueline Meldrum

Roast Vegetable, Olive and Beetroot Salad

A substantial winter salad filled with roast vegetables on a bed of salad leaves, with sundried tomatoes, pickled beetroot, olives and a pesto balsamic dressing. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

prep time: 10 MINScook time: 25 MINStotal time: 35 mins

ingredients

Salad

• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
• 1 red onion, peeled, cut in half and then into wedges
• 1 courgette (zucchini), sliced
• a drizzle of olive oil (or rapeseed oil)
• 40g mixed salad leaves
• 3 pickled baby beets, halved
• 6 pitted green olives
• 3 sundried tomatoes, halved

Salad Dressing

• 3 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp pesto 
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• a small pinch of salt and pepper

instructions

1. Preheat oven to 220 °C /200°C fan/ gas mark 7.
2. Place the vegetables on the tray and drizzle with  a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss with your hands and then try to lay the vegetables  in one layer if you can. Roast for 25-30 minutes, keeping an eye on them. They should be charred at the edges and soft.
3. In a small glass or bowl mix the salad dressing ingredients together,  whisking with a fork.
4. It's time to plate up your salad. First cover the plate with a layer or salad leaves, then top with roast vegetables, beetroot, sundried tomatoes and olives.
5. Drizzle your dressing over the salad and dig in.
6. Enjoy!

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