Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Daring Cooks June 2011 Challenge-Healthy Potato Salads from Around the World

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!
For this month's challenge, I chose to make a cold potato salad with a yogurt based dressing. I wanted a lot of textures in my salad so to balance the softness of the boiled baby potatoes, so I mixed in jicama to provide crunch.

JICAMA and BABY POTATO SALAD
Jicama 1 piece
Baby potatoes 5 pieces
Red bellpepper 1 small
Spring Onions
Dried Cranberries

DRESSING:
Greek Yogurt 2 tablespoons
Turmeric 1/2 teaspoon
Himalayan Pink Salt to taste
Black Pepper to taste

Wash and boil baby potatoes (do not peel) until fork tender. Take out of water and cool. Peel jicama and dice. Dice red bellpeppers, cut spring onions (green part only). When potatoes are cold enough, cut into halves.
Mix all dressing ingredients together. A little water can be added to thin out the dressing. Pour over potatoes, jicama, red bellpeppers, spring onions and cranberries. Mix well until vegetables are coated, chill.
Serve cold.

I don't know if sweet potatoes can be added to this category but I have a current obsession, salad with raw sweet potatoes and beets! It's just a mixture of mixed greens, carrots peeled and ribboned, cubed fuji apples, raw sweet potatoes and raw beets sliced thinly with a mandoline. Some alfalfa sprouts and dried cranberries and drizzled with a simple vinaigrette. Delicious!


Thank you Jami for hosting this month's Daring Cooks' challenge! For other Daring Cooks' potato salad recipes, click here.


20 comments:

Suz said...

I'm definitely coming round to the potato salad in all its forms. I like the sound of yoghurt as a dressing, and your beet/sweet potato salad is so colourful and vibrant. Gorgeous!

Renata said...

Jicama is totally new to me and I had to google it to get the idea. Both salads look amazing. I love the yogurt dressing idea. Great job on the challenge!

Andy said...

Great idea on combining the jicama!

Anonymous said...

I love your sweet potato salad..it is so colorful and vibrant..and the spices in the yogurt salad are amazing too...
great job on the challenge!

shelley c. said...

Oooh - wow, that first one looks and sounds delicious, with the jicama and cranberries and yogurt dressing... YUM. And I have never had sweet potatoes raw, but now really want to try it! Great job on the challenge.

Creating Nirvana said...

I just bought my first Jimca that other day. I like the subtle sweetness of it. Great job on this month's challenge.

MissVicky said...

love the colors in the beet version! :)

Mary said...

Jicama sounds like a great addition for a potato salad, but that sweet potato and beet one looks amazing! I love both, but haven't tried them raw, yet.

Monkeyshines in the Kitchen said...

Your salads look perfect. It's so hard to make potato salad look gorgeous, but you did that - especially with that spectacular beet and sweet potato salad!

Unknown said...

Fantastic! Wonderful to see 2 versions. Both look YUMMMM!

www.cookinformycaptain.blogspot.com

Cooking Rookie said...

I love jicama and potatoes combos - they have perfectly complementary textures! Great salad :-)

Unknown said...

Great recipe. I am a huge lover of potato salad but I try to control how much I eat just because of the caloric intake.

Kitchen Belleicious said...

Wow! That looks GREAT! I love me some potato salad. My nanny makes the best but I think you just gave her a run for her money with your version!

FamilySpice said...

Very colorful salads! Love the idea of mixing beets and sweet potatoes. Great job!

Margie said...

Great idea to use jicama for crunch and I liked the surprise sweetness of the cranberries. Your beets & sweets salad looks delish too!

Morgan said...

Looks great! It actually sounds refreshing - not something I'd usually associate with potato salad! Nice work

Anonymous said...

I love your 'baby' baby potato salad. Looks like we had similar ideas with the fruit and yogurt, but I adore th addition of jicama - so perfect and clever, it's like an apple-potato! I also love your raw sweet potato salad with beets. It's gorgeous. Now I want to try raw sweet potatoes! I mean..I've been eating raw corn forever, so why not? :)

Oggi said...

Love the addition of jicama, and yogurt is always a plus.

Sarah said...

Raw sweet potatoes? That is such a foreign idea to me. Perhaps I'll try a chunk next time I'm putting some in to roast.

Your salad looks so good! Jicama sounds like a great addition to potato salad.

Roxana | a trEATs affair said...

I had only once jicama at a Mexican restaurant. never tried to cook it at home. your potato salad sounds healthy and delicious. Thanks for sharing