Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad – featuring a veggie rainbow of brussels sprouts, sweet potato, beans, cucumber, and kale, and then drenched in this creamy, clean-eating sunflower dressing! YUM.
Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad
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I absolutely loved this salad! It was so fresh and tasty. I love when food that’s good for you is also delicious!
Jennifer
Once a month, we ask readers to submit their best recipes, and we pick one, and we make it, and we eat it!
This month our theme was salads, and HOLY HEAVEN we got a lot of yummy salad submissions. I have never felt so much love towards vegetables in all my life. But not just vegetables – noodles, quinoa, chicken, fruit – every type of salad was well-represented.
We sorted them, and drooled over them, and eventually settled on the one that intrigued us all: The Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad, submitted by Misha.
Here’s what this salad is all about:
- vegetables
- more vegetables
- any vegetables you want, really
- they could be roasted vegetables – like sweet potato and brussels sprouts
- or raw vegetables – like a randomly crunchy cucumber
- could also include beans and other protein-y things
- and you should throw a handful of seeds on there
- but mostly
- THE DRESSING
- a creamy, clean-eating, sunflowery dressing with a pinch of curry powder to give it life.
This is very much a make-it-with-whatever-you-have-salad which happens to be my favorite kind of salad.
How To Make Our Sunflower Salad:
Misha, thank you so much for your Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad recipe submission! As you can see from the pictures, we loved it. We loved it so much that while we were eating, I forgot to take any more pictures.
There was silent crunching. There was joy. There was plate-licking.
And there were plans made to make it again.
You guys need to try this!
Misha knows what’s up.
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Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
Kitchen Sink Sunflower Salad – featuring a veggie rainbow of brussels sprouts, sweet potato, beans, cucumber, and kale, and then drenched in this creamy, clean-eating sunflower dressing! YUM.
Ingredients
Scale
For the Sunflower Dressing
- 2 tablespoons sunflower seed butter
- 4 tablespoons plain yogurt
- pinch of garlic powder
- 1–2 teaspoons of curry powder
- 1–2 teaspoons cumin
- freshly ground pepper
- salt
- water to thin it out to taste
For the Salad (this part is open for interpretation based on what you have!):
- 1 sweet potato
- 10 brussel sprouts
- 2 cups kale
- 1 cucumber
- 1 cup black beans (or any beans)
- protein of choice (we used two crumbled veggie burgers )
- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
Instructions
- Whisk the dressing up in a small bowl, or run it through the food processor until smooth.
- Chop everything up.
- Season the sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts. Drizzle with a tiny bit of oil and roast at 425 degrees until nice and brown.
- Toss it all together! YESSSSS PLEASE!
Notes
Misha says: “I’m very particular with my sunflower butter, as I find not all are equal. Here I really do recommend the Trader Joe’s sunflower butter with the yellow and blue container design. DO NOT use the green/yellow sunflower seed butter from Trader Joe’s. It tastes completely different, and not at all good good in my opinion.”
Misha also says: “For the yogurt, you can use Greek or not; Trader Joe’s French village whole milk yogurt is highly recommended.”
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Lunch
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: kitchen sink sunflower salad, sunflower butter salad, vegetable salad
Next Up…. April READER RECIPE CHALLENGE!
Next month our theme is dessert recipes! Chocolatey, creamy, fruit-loaded, even retro-style desserts.
Give us watcha got!
You can submit your recipe by clicking here. Submissions are now closed.
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of best healthy vegetarian recipes. Check it out!
Filed Under: All Recipes Dairy-Free Gluten-Free Healthy Kale Legume Salads Spring Sugar-Free Sweet Potato Vegetarian
March 29, 2018
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
Any thoughts on meal-prepping this? Would it keep over a few days all tossed together or should I keep the salad and dressing separate? This is exactly the kind of thing I like to take to work for lunch.
We’d probably keep the salad and dressing separate!
This recipe looks great! Though I am quite excited for next month’s dessert theme…
Us too! 🙂
I’m in. Just need to find the sunflower seed butter, have everything else woo hoo! I went to college (um, 30 years ago) with a Misha. Never met anyone else with that name! Looks like a great recipe!
Hope you enjoy it!
I too am particular about my sunflower seed butter and only buy the blue/yellow label one from TJ’s. Can’t wait to try this! Looks like a go-to recipe for sure, thanks!
Hope you enjoy it, Kathy!
love that this was inspired by a sweet potato craving, thank you for sharing this recipe, very creative!
This salad looks amazing! I love that you added sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts and black beans. Such a unique twist of different ingredients but I can see how it would work with the dressing you made. Thank you for sharing. I can’t wait to try it.
Thanks, Stacey! We love this recipe from Misha!
This may be a silly question, but can you use any other nut butter in place of the sunflower seed butter? Almond maybe? I never use sunflower seed butter so I’m worried it would be a waste of money to buy a whole thing for 2 Tbsp. Thanks!!
Almond Butter would be a great sub!
Can this be made dairy free? Maybe coconut milk in place of yogurt?
That sounds like a great sub! If you’re able to find coconut cream, that might be even better.
This looks absolutely delicious.. have to try it!
Hope you enjoy it!
This looks delicious!! I love this new series on the blog. Perhaps I’ll send something in myself next month 🙂
Please do! 🙂 We’d love to see it!
I’m so happy that spring & summer salad season is upon us – I cannot wait for all the fresh veggies and fruits!!
Right!? It’s the best!
This salad sounds delicious as I really, really love brussels sprouts. However, I’ve never come across sunflower seed butter and wonder if I can make my own. Does anyone know?
We’ve never made our own, but this might be helpful: https://www.food.com/recipe/how-to-make-your-own-sunflower-seed-butter-422938. 🙂
I only make my own. Jenna’s link is similar to what I do. I cut out some steps by buying roasted, _lightly_ salted sunflower seeds. I just throw those suckers in the food processor and start blending. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl 2 or 3 times, and you’re good! Adding oil will (1) speed up the process a little and (2) get you a smoother grind.
I love TJ and can’t wait to try their sunflowet butter next round. This looks amazing and love how,easy it is
Looks really good. Nice salad for spring time.
Could you recommend a go to veggie burger?? Thanks!!!
We used Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean veggie burger and loved it!
This looks so colorful and yummy!!
http://beautifullyme.in/
Hi there! What do you season the Brussel sprouts and potatoes with? In the recipe it says to season, but doesn’t not specify with what.
Just some salt and pepper will do the trick!
Hello – Canadian here. We don’t have trader joe’s. What would you recommend looking for in the ingredients? How do I choose a sunflower seed butter?
Hi Tamara! We haven’t used sunflower butter very much in cooking, so don’t have great insight on the best kind besides what Misha said. I’ve heard great things about SunButter, though – and it should be available in most grocery stores!
This salad is gorgeous! I can’t wait to try the dressing!!
LOVED this! I love how easy it is to modify. I used chickpeas instead of black beans, and threw some mushrooms on top. Could be really good with feta or goat cheese too. I think the meatiness of the ingredients hold up well to closer to two teaspoons+ of the spices. I’ll make again and again.
So glad to hear that, Katy!
what a great idea.. love the idea of sunflower butter in a dressing. I’ve been seeing almond butter in dressings too. It adds the extra protein with good fats. Kale is such a keeper! 🙂 Also Misha.. this is Nisha, great idea to do some traveling before adulting. You learn so much!
I have really enjoyed this. SO much i’m going back to the grocery store to get another sweet potato to make it again 🙂 I don’t love kale… so what I did was just roasted a ton of the veggies & cauliflower and then drizzled the dressing all over it with a veggie burger… uh yeah, soooo good.
Glad to hear that, Alice!
For those of us who don’t have access to Trader Joe’s sunflower butter I searched out the difference between the blue label (recommended) and the green label (not recommended) and the blue label has sugar as the second ingredient whereas the green is just the seeds.
So keep that in mind if you are looking for a substitute.
Thanks, Lianne!
Looking amazing!! Can’t wait to try this. Thaks for sharing
Black beans and Sunflower seeds always special for me. Looking healthy and delicious recipe.