Roasted Sweet Potato and Quinoa Kale Salad with Pomegranate Quince Bal

This is the salad we build every fall tasting table around — it's substantial enough to be someone's whole plate, and the balsamic dressing is what pulls all the pieces together.

Roasted sweet potato, cooked quinoa, and massaged kale are a great base on their own, but our Pomegranate Quince Balsamic is what turns this from "healthy salad" into something people actually crave. It's fruity and a little tart, and it plays beautifully against the sweetness of the roasted potato.

Dried cherries and goat cheese round it out, but the dressing is doing the heavy lifting.

Massaging the Kale Actually Matters

If you've ever had a kale salad that tasted tough and bitter, it's almost always a massaging problem, not a kale problem. A few minutes of working the dressing into the leaves with your hands breaks down the fibers and mellows the bitterness completely — don't skip this step.

A tough, bitter kale salad is almost never a kale problem. It's a massaging problem.

— The Olive 'n Vinnie's Kitchen

Once you've made it this way, plain undressed kale salad is genuinely hard to go back to.

Aged Pomegranate Quince White Balsamic — Olive 'n Vinnie's Market

The Dressing's Backbone

Pomegranate Quince Balsamic

🍅 Pomegranate 🍐 Quince ✨ Bright & Fruity

A rose-colored, crisp white balsamic with layers of tart pomegranate and quince. Beautiful on a leafy salad with goat cheese, caramelized onions, or a splash in sparkling water for something unexpected.

Shop This Product

The Dressing's Other Half

Cobrancosa Extra Virgin Olive Oil

🫒 Cobrancosa Olive 🌿 Grassy ⚖️ Balanced

A smooth, well-balanced extra virgin olive oil with a gentle peppery finish. A great everyday EVOO for dressings, roasting vegetables, or finishing a dish where you don't want the oil to fight the other flavors.

Shop This Product

From the Olive 'n Vinnie's Kitchen

Roasted Sweet Potato & Quinoa Kale Salad

Substantial enough to be dinner, pretty enough for a tasting table.

Prep 20 min

Rest

Cook 25 min

Total 45 min

Serves 6

Difficulty Medium

Ingredients

2 cups roasted sweet potatoes, cubed
1 cup cooked quinoa
2 cups kale, stems removed and chopped
¼ cup dried cherries
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled
3 tbsp Pomegranate Quince Balsamic
3 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Instructions

Roast the cubed sweet potato at 400°F for about 25 minutes, until tender and lightly caramelized. Let cool slightly.
Whisk the Pomegranate Quince Balsamic and Extra Virgin Olive Oil together to make the dressing.
Massage the dressing into the chopped kale with your hands for 1–2 minutes, until the leaves soften and darken slightly.
Fold in the cooked quinoa, roasted sweet potato, and dried cherries.
Top with crumbled goat cheese just before serving.

Make-ahead tip: The roasted sweet potato, cooked quinoa, and dressing can all be made up to 2 days ahead and stored separately. Massage the kale and assemble the day you're serving it.

Make It Your Own

Swap the goat cheese for feta if that's what you have on hand, or leave it off entirely for a dairy-free version. Toasted pecans or walnuts add a nice crunch, and roasted butternut squash works just as well as the sweet potato if that's what's in season.

💡

Vinnie's Tip

The Pomegranate Quince Balsamic is one of our most versatile white balsamics — it's just as good drizzled over a cheese board, stirred into sparkling water, or used to caramelize onions for a savory dish. Come taste it before you build your next salad around it.