Sweet Potato, Chickpea and Tahini Salad

Last night before dinner I was looking at recipes on Smitten Kitchen and stumbled upon a recipe for butternut squash and chickpea salad. I was killing time before dinner and happened to have all the ingredients so I got in the kitchen and whipped this up in under an hour. 


You can't find butternut squash in Istanbul, or if you can, you definitely can't during the summer, but I had purchased some sweet potatoes earlier in the day and swapped those for the squash. I used this recipe and it turned out beautifully. 


Turns out sweet potatoes and tahini make a really great team. The tahini melts into the warm sweet potatoes creating a creamy treat that's low in calories yet really indulgent. 


Since I didn't have any parsley on hand, I subbed some green onions for them. I would NOT recommend this. The green onions combined with the raw red onions was just too much punch for the dish; almost overwhelmingly so. 


All in all, this dish is a wonderful hearty dish for summer that doesn't take too much time and is filling without being heavy. I recommend serving it with a side of arugula salad with lots of lemon or maybe as I'm prone to do (for almost everything) a dollop of yogurt. 


Note: The combination of chickpeas (protein) and sweet potatoes (healthy, low- glycemic index starch) make this a perfect vegetarian entree.