Recipe: Roasted Sweet Potato Salad (with lime juice, cilantro and red onion)

ROASTED SWEET POTATO SALAD

"Sweet potato salad is the easiest thing to make. Just roast diced cubes of yam and toss them with chopped red onion, lime juice, and cilantro. You need only a dab of olive oil, thanks to the natural moisture of the yams.

Sweet Potato Salad is best served warm or at room temperature. Though you may associate yams with winter, this is a salad to enjoy all year 'round.

Be sure to use long, twisty-shaped and purple-skinned Garnet yams or plumper-shaped, copper skinned Jewels and Beauregards because their creamy meat makes a better salad."

2 pounds Garnet or Jewel yams, or other sweet potatoes, peeled and cut in 3/4-inch pieces
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp. finely chopped red onion
2 tsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp. salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro leaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Arrange the sweet potatoes on the baking sheet. Spray them liberally with cooking spray and toss until they are well coated.

Roast until the potatoes are tender but not soft, 20-25 minutes, turning them once or twice. (It is ok if the potatoes brown lightly, but do not let them blacken.)

Transfer the potatoes to a large mixing bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

While they are still warm, toss the potatoes with the oil, onion, lime juice, and salt. Season to taste with the pepper. Heap the potatoes onto a serving plate and sprinkle with the cilantro.

Each of the 4 servings contains 270 calories and 4 grams of fat.

*Yam, sweet potato: What's the difference? What we often call a yam is actually a sweet potato. Like all sweet potatoes, these yams belong to the morning glory family, whether their meat is pale yellow and velvety dry when cooked, or darker-colored and succulent. A true yam is huge and hairy. A tuber which originally came from Africa, it is sold mainly in ethnic food stores.

Adapted from source: Dana Jacobi for the American Institute for Cancer Research