June Daring Cooks Challenge: Healthy Potato Salad

We have had a busy the last few months and haven't participated in the last few Daring Cooks or Daring Baker challenges.  This months challenge was something I wanted to make sure we were able to participate in. When I saw the Daring Cooks challenge was a healthier potato salad and we were allowed to be creative and do our own thing, I knew it was time to challenge D.  We were going to have a potato salad throw down or Iron Chef.. POTATO SALAD.... either challenge would do!

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!

My potato salad was going to feature sweet potatoes and a vinegar based dressing.  Here is what I used.

2 Medium Sweet Potatoes

4 green onions- white and green parts

3 oz colored peppers

Some Agave nectar

2 TBS Chili pepper paste

2 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Onion powder

¼ cup vinegar
Zest of lime, orange, lemon
Juice of lime, half orange, half lemon

First I cut up the sweet potatoes and placed on a baking sheet to roast in a 450 deg oven. I'm too lazy to peel a sweet potato when roasting it, so go ahead save some time and leave the peel on (Thanks Sara for notifying me that it was ok to leave the peel on!).  

While the potatoes were roasting I cut the green onions, peppers, zested the citrus, and mixed up the sauce with the spices.

As soon as the potatoes came out of the oven I poured over the sauce.  It is best when making a vinegar based potato salad to dress the potatoes when they are hot so they absorb the vinegar.  I then put the salad in the fridge until it was chilled and ready to eat!

Now for the calorie count.. mine was a total of 630 calories for the whole batch!!

Derek’s potato salad was going to be a creamy dill sauce.  Here is what he used:

Bag of small red potatoes

5 Green onions

1 container Greek yogurt

A ton of fresh dill

½ packet ranch dressing seasoning

First D cut his potatoes and decided since the smoker was on he was going to smoke his potatoes to cook them.  He sprayed them with some olive oil and added some minced garlic.

Meanwhile, he mixed together the Greek yogurt, ranch mix, and fresh dill.

Once the potatoes came out he chilled them before dressing the potatoes and mixing in the green onion. D's potato salad had a total calorie count of 765.

Both of these potato salads served a bunch!  So the calorie counts turned out great!  Now for the taste test..  D and I both agreed mine were better.  The smoked taste of D's potatoes would have been great served warm, but it slightly overpowered the potato salad and it also prevented the dressing from soaking into the potatoes.