Fall Harvest Salad with Roast Chicken Sweet Potato and Pecans

This fresh and flavorful Fall Harvest Salad with Chicken and Sweet Potato includes delicious goodies like apples, dried cranberries, pecans, feta cheese, sunflower seeds, and a delightful lemon parsley dressing. The ideal salad for fall and winter!

If you’ve followed The Roasted Root for some time, you know I’m all about huge, filling salads that are positively packed with sensational goodies.

Today, I bring you a fall salad recipe that is ideal for the chilly months of the year. It is loaded with lean protein and also fall produce for a comforting approach to salad.

Infused with crunchy pecans and sunflower seeds, tangy feta cheese, sweet dried cranberries and apples, and swaddled in a lemon-parsley vinaigrette, we’re gifted all sorts of flavors and textures in this complete meal.

The best part? You can prepare the chicken and roasted sweet potatoes well in advance to make meal prep a cinch. Once the chicken and potatoes are cooked, all you have to do is toss all the ingredients together in a big bowl and you’re ready to chow!

If you made my Crunchy Kale Salad recipe, you’ve already been exposed to the incredible lemon-parsley dressing I’m about to discuss.

I’ve been making this homemade dressing for over 10 years and it never gets old. It works marvelously on just about any salad and adds fresh herby flavor with citrus tang for a true delight for the taste buds.

For you salad lovers, also try my Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash. It’s another fall favorite!

Let’s discuss the ingredients for this easy fall harvest salad recipe. It includes all my favorite fall ingredients! The great news is you can find the full ingredient list at your local grocery store.

Fall Harvest Salad Ingredients:

Spring Greens: For the base of the salad, we need some kind of leafy greens. I like using Spring mix because it’s my favorite, but baby spinach, kale, and romaine lettuce are also great options.

I chop the greens up into smaller pieces to ensure they’re easily scoopable into the mouth. 

Cooked Chicken Breast: Select your favorite kind of chicken for salads! I have all sorts of chicken recipes on this site that will work, and any kind of pre-cooked store-bought chicken such as rotisserie chicken works great too!

Sweet Potato: Bringing some much loved hearty carbohydrates, texture, and flavor to the salad, we chop up a big sweet potato and roast it to perfection.

You can replace the sweet potato with any kind of winter squash like butternut squash, kabocha squash, delicata squash, or acorn squash. 

Honeycrisp Apple: Fresh apples bring sweetness, some tanginess and lovely crisp texture to the salad. Use your favorite kind of apple! I like honeycrisp apples because they are both sweet and tart with a nice balance of the two.

Any kind of crisp apples work. Granny smith apples or sweet apples like Fuji apples or pink lady apples are amazing.

Dried Cranberries: Dried cranberries add sweetness, their own element of texture and some tang to the salad for more flavor.

Feta Cheese: How do you feel about feta cheese in every salad ever? I feel great about it too! Feta adds a cheesy, salty, tangy element to everything it touches, which is just marvelous in this fall salad recipe.

Raw Pecans: Don’t ask me why, but raw pecans (or walnuts) just scream autumn. Pecans are amazing in salads when raw, roasted or candied. For a little fun, make my Easy Candied Pecans for a leveled up version of nuts.

Sunflower Seeds: Listen, sunflower seeds hold a special place in the salad realm. There really is no other flavor like sunflower seed flavor, so you had best toss them in. Unless, of course you don’t like them.

Red Onion: The red onion is optional because it can definitely taste overpowering to some people. If you love raw red onions in your salads, toss in a little. If you aren’t into that powerful zing, leave it out.

Every big beautiful salad comes with an amazing dressing, so let’s discuss those ingredients too.

Salad Dressing Ingredients:

Avocado Oil: Every homemade salad dressing begins with oil. I like using avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil over seed oils.

Lemon Juice: Fresh lemon juice brings citrus flair and that acidic bite that we all love so much in salad dressings.

Dijon Mustard: A touch of dijon enhances the flavor without making the dressing taste overly mustardy.

Fresh Parsley: The herb of choice here! Parsley is high in antioxidants for an anti-inflammatory property in addition to packing a wonderful herby flavor.

Fresh Garlic: A single garlic clove goes a long way in enhancing the salad dressing so that it is a fully dreamy experience.

Sea Salt and Black Pepper: Season the salad dressing with sea salt and black pepper to your personal taste.

Recipe Adaptations:

• Add 2 teaspoons of pure maple syrup to the dressing for a sweeter dressing.
• Replace the feta cheese with goat cheese or blue cheese.
• Add pomegranate seeds if you have access to pomegranate arils! 1/3 cup works great.
• Use massaged kale, shredded brussels sprouts or your favorite greens instead of Spring greens. Hearty kale will make the salad leftovers easier to keep than a flimsier lettuce. 
• Replace the lemon juice with balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar in the salad dressing if you prefer.
• Add cooked crispy bacon or crispy prosciutto for more savory flavors.

Now that we’ve covered the healthy ingredients for this amazing salad recipe, let’s make it!

How to Make Fall Harvest Salad:

Add the ingredients for the lemon parsley dressing to a small bowl or measuring cup and stir until well-combined. Set aside until ready to use.

Prepare the chicken using your preferred method. I like making my Greek Chicken Breasts, but you can choose your favorite baked chicken recipe or use store-bought rotisserie chicken.

Be sure to cool the chicken completely in the refrigerator before using it in the recipe. When cool enough to handle, chop the chicken into small cubes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Chop the sweet potato into bite-sized pieces and spread them over a large baking sheet in a single layer.

Drizzle with avocado oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Use your hands to toss the sweet potato chunks together until they are all coated with oil and sea salt.

Roast sweet potato on the center rack of the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, shaking the sheet pan half-way through. The sweet potato pieces are ready when they are slightly golden-brown and fork tender.

Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven and allow them to cool to room temperature.

Note: you can speed up this process by moving the chunks of sweet potato to a bowl or container and refrigerating until chilled. You can also roast the sweet potato up to 4 days in advance of making the recipe.

Chop the spring greens into smaller shreds on a cutting board using a sharp knife. Transfer the chopped greens to a large bowl. I like using the large serving bowl in which I intend to serve the salad.

Add the remaining salad ingredients to the bowl with the greens (chopped chicken, roasted sweet potato, chopped apple, feta cheese, dried cranberries, pecans, sunflower seeds, and red onion). 

Drizzle in your desired amount of salad dressing and toss everything together until the ingredients are coated with dressing. Serve in big salad bowls and enjoy!

Salads are best when served fresh, but if you have leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours.

Meal Prep Suggestions:

If you enjoy meal prepping salads for your workweek lunches or weeknight dinners, this one is great for that!

Simply keep everything stored separately in the refrigerator and toss it all together just before eating.

You can put all of the salad ingredients in a large mason jar or glass container before work then add the salad dressing just before eating the salad.

I prefer this method over batch-preparing salads to ensure the lettuce and nuts don’t become soggy.

The next time you’re craving a massive salad that has fall weather written all over it, whip up this beauty!

You can easily halve the recipe as well as double or triple it depending on how many people you’re feeding. 

Save this autumn harvest salad recipe for your holiday table too! You can omit the chicken when using it as a side dish to a main dish. We always have a lovely fall harvest salad like this on our Thanksgiving table, as it adds freshness and vibrance to the delicious meal.

Enjoy this hearty salad beyond the fall season and well into winter!

If you love healthy salad recipes like this one, also try out these reader favorites!

More Healthy Salads:

• Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Peanut Dressing  
• Chicken Bacon Avocado Ranch Salad  
• Tzatziki Salmon Salad  
• Pear Apple Avocado Spinach Salad with Candied Walnuts Feta and Pumpkin Seeds
• Southwest Chicken Chopped Salad  

A fall harvest fiesta for your face!

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