Warm sweet potato and chicken salad

Having quite dramatically over indulged over the festive period and quite possibly in to January (!) I am making a conscious effort to climb back on to the healthy eating wagon and treat my body to some well-deserved TLC in the form of good, nutritious food.

As I know I’ve mentioned before, I have an almighty, sometimes uncontrollable sweet tooth that I spend a lot of my time struggling to tame. This sweet tooth is far from ideal when I lead a healthy lifestyle full of regular exercise and healthy intentions. However, to give myself a little credit, I do believe that should have let my sweet tooth win every time I had a craving, I would probably be at a lot greater risk of diabetes/heart disease!

There are some foods I eat in order to suppress those irritating, nagging cravings. To snack on I tend to opt for the crunchy sweetness of Pink Lady apples, sweet corn or red grapes, or the delicious richness of a small handful of seeds and raisins; I always try to find a healthy alternative to refined sugar.

This warm sweet potato and chicken salad is influenced by a Delicious Ella recipe with some twists along the way. I have also added some beautifully marinated chicken.

I love the rich, heartiness of this salad; it consists of some of my favourite foods; sweet potato, chicken and mushrooms, I could eat this dish all day, every day. The meatiness of the sweet potato and the chestnut mushrooms are a lovely contrast to the light wilted spinach and fresh cherry tomatoes.

Ingredients – serves 2

Chicken marinade

• Olive oil - I use Frylight one cal spray

• 2 chicken breasts

• 1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce

• 1 tablespoon HP sauce

• A sprinkling of salt (to taste)

• A sprinkling of pepper (to taste)

• A squeeze of honey

Salad

• 1 large sweet potato

• A dozen chestnut mushrooms

• A bag of spinach

• Cherry tomatoes (however many you'd like)

• 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon paprika

• Salt

• Olive oil - I use Frylight one cal spray

Method

Firstly, marinate however many chicken breasts you would like in the sweet chili sauce, HP sauce, salt, pepper and honey for a good few hours. Make sure that each chicken is completely covered in the flavours until they have been infused into the meat.

On to the salad. Cut the sweet potatoes in to cube size chunks and pop them on a baking tray. Cover them in the salt, oil, paprika and cinnamon then bake for 20 minutes at 190C.

Griddle the chicken on a low heat for fifteen minutes until beautifully tender, put to the side.

In the meantime, get to work on the mushrooms and spinach. Slice up the mushrooms and gently fry them in the oil and salt. The cooking of the mushrooms will take just over five minutes. Then, before the mushrooms have completely cooked through, add the spinach to wilt in the pan until smooth and soft.

Add the sliced cherry tomatoes and the cooked sweet potato to the mushroom and spinach mixture and stir together, adding the soy sauce to give the vegetables a salty edge.

Serve with the deliciously flavorsome chicken and enjoy!