There's always one bowl at a barbecue that gets scraped down to the ceramic.
Usually it isn't the salad.
The first time I put this one on a table, three people asked for the recipe before the sausages came off the grill.
A colleague from Auckland had made it for a work potluck the summer before, and I'd been quietly thinking about it ever since.
Roasted sweet potato, dark at the edges. Bacon, properly crisp. A dressing that tasted like something I couldn't place.
Curry powder. That was it.
It's a New Zealand fixture, and there it's made with kumara, which is the Maori name for sweet potato and what the whole country calls it.
American orange sweet potato works beautifully, and I'll tell you the one adjustment to make.
What I love about this salad is that it's genuinely hearty without being heavy.
The kumara roasts sweet and caramelized instead of going soft and waterlogged the way boiled potato does.
The sour cream dressing is tangy rather than gloopy, and the curry powder gives it that faintly warm, slightly mysterious edge that keeps people going back.
My wife requests it any weekend the grill comes out.
It travels well, it can be built ahead, and it's just as good at room temperature as it is cold.
Make it once and it'll be on your barbecue rotation permanently!
What Kumara Is
Kumara is the New Zealand sweet potato, and the word is Maori. It arrived in Aotearoa with Polynesian settlers centuries before Europeans did, and it's been a staple crop ever since. In a New Zealand supermarket you'll find three main types side by side.
- Golden kumara. Gold skin, creamy pale flesh. The everyday default and what most New Zealanders picture. Drier and noticeably less sweet than an American sweet potato.
- Red kumara. Red-purple skin, pale flesh. Slightly sweeter, a little softer when roasted.
- Orange kumara. Orange skin and flesh, the closest to what Americans buy. Sweetest of the three.
Can you use regular sweet potato? Absolutely, and if you're reading this in the US that's what you'll be doing.
Here's the one adjustment: American orange sweet potato is wetter and sweeter than golden kumara, so roast it a little hotter, at 425°F rather than 400°F, and cut the honey in the dressing to ½ teaspoon or drop it entirely.
That's the whole difference. The salad is the salad.
Ingredients You'll Need
The dressing is what makes this a New Zealand salad rather than an American one, so don't wander from it. Everything in the bowl is straightforward.
- Kumara or sweet potato (2 ½ pounds). Peeled and cut into ¾ inch dice. Small enough to eat with a spoon, big enough to survive being tossed in dressing. Peel it. The skin goes leathery in a cold salad.
- Olive oil (2 tablespoons) and salt (1 teaspoon). For roasting. Salt the kumara on the tray, not the finished salad.
- Streaky bacon (8 ounces). Diced before cooking so you get small crisp pieces distributed through the bowl rather than large floppy strips. Streaky is what New Zealanders use and American thick cut bacon is the same thing.
- Red onion (1 small). Finely diced. Soak it in cold water for 10 minutes and drain if you want the bite dialed back.
- Red capsicum, bell pepper (1). Diced. Color and a fresh crunch against all that soft roasted kumara.
- Toasted pine nuts (⅓ cup). Optional and worth it. Toast them dry in a pan for 3 minutes, shaking constantly, and take them off the second they smell nutty.
- Coriander, cilantro (⅓ cup leaves). Roughly chopped. Flat leaf parsley is the standard swap if coriander isn't for you.
- Sour cream (½ cup) and mayonnaise (¼ cup). The two together is the sweet spot. Sour cream alone reads a little thin, mayonnaise alone gets heavy.
- Curry powder (2 teaspoons). A standard mild yellow curry powder, nothing fancy or fiery. This is non-negotiable and it's the signature of the dish.
- White wine vinegar (1 tablespoon) and honey (1 teaspoon). Sharp and sweet, balancing the cream.
How to Make Kumara and Bacon Salad
Step 1: Roast the Kumara
Heat the oven to 425°F.
Toss the diced kumara with the olive oil and salt and spread it on a large tray in a single layer.
Crowd the tray and it steams instead of roasting, which gives you pale, soft cubes with no caramelization at all. Use two trays if you need to.
Roast 25 to 30 minutes, turning once at the halfway mark, until the edges are dark and slightly crisp.
Then let it cool completely on the tray. This matters and I'll come back to it.
Step 2: Crisp the Bacon
Cook the diced bacon in a dry pan over medium heat until it's properly crisp, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Drain it on paper towels.
Half-crisp bacon goes soft and chewy the moment it meets a creamy dressing, and chewy bacon in a cold salad is a sad thing.
Step 3: Whisk the Dressing
Whisk the sour cream, mayonnaise, vinegar, curry powder and honey together with a good grind of black pepper.
Let it sit for 10 minutes before you use it.
Curry powder needs a few minutes in something wet to stop tasting dusty. Taste it before and after and you'll see exactly what I mean.
Step 4: Cool, Then Combine
Once the kumara is at room temperature, tip it into a large bowl with the red onion, capsicum and most of the coriander.
Add the dressing and fold gently with a spatula.
Fold, don't stir. Roasted kumara is fragile and aggressive mixing turns the bowl into mash.
Add the bacon and pine nuts right at the end, scatter the rest of the coriander over the top, and serve.
The Dressing, and Why Curry Powder
Curry powder in a creamy salad dressing is a genuinely New Zealand habit and it goes back decades. It turns up in kumara salad, in coronation-style chicken, in devilled eggs and in a lot of mid-century potluck cooking that stuck around because it works.
It isn't there to make the salad taste like curry.
At 2 teaspoons across a bowl this size, it reads as warmth and a faint savory perfume, not as heat or as an obvious spice.
That's the note people can't identify and keep coming back to figure out.
On the ratio: I use 2 parts sour cream to 1 part mayonnaise. Go all sour cream for a sharper, lighter dressing. Go all mayonnaise and it turns rich and claggy against the sweetness of the kumara.
Too thick after it sits? A teaspoon of water or lemon juice loosens it straight back up.
Tips for the Best Kumara Salad
Five things, and the first one is the one everybody gets wrong.
- COOL the kumara completely before dressing it. Warm kumara drinks the dressing, goes pasty, and you end up adding more dressing to compensate. Give it 30 minutes on the tray, or spread it out and refrigerate it for 15.
- Single layer on the tray, always. Two trays beats one crowded tray every single time.
- Salt the kumara, not the dressing. Salt on the tray before roasting seasons each cube from the outside in. The bacon brings plenty of salt to the finished bowl.
- Bacon in last. Literally the final thing before it goes to the table, so it stays crisp.
- Cut evenly. ¾ inch dice throughout. Mixed sizes give you burnt small pieces and undercooked big ones.
- Dress it lightly and add more. Start with three quarters of the dressing, fold, look at it, then decide. You can always add.
Variations
Every New Zealand family seems to have its own version, and most of them are good.
- Mustard and honey vinaigrette. Swap the creamy dressing for 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard, 2 teaspoons vinegar, 2 teaspoons honey and ¼ cup olive oil. Lighter, sharper, and it holds up better in the sun.
- The orange and pineapple version. An older New Zealand style: add 1 peeled orange cut into segments and 1 cup of pineapple pieces, and use a curried mayonnaise dressing. Divisive in the best way.
- Walnut and orange. Toasted walnuts instead of pine nuts, with orange segments folded through. A common combination at New Zealand kumara growers' own recipe pages.
- With boiled egg. Two hard boiled eggs, quartered, folded in at the end. Pushes it toward a proper potato salad.
- Vegetarian. Skip the bacon and use ⅓ cup of smoked almonds plus ½ teaspoon of smoked paprika in the dressing. You need the smoke, not just the crunch.
- Grilled instead of roasted. Cut the kumara into thick slices, oil them, and grill until charred, then chop. Perfect if the barbecue is already lit.
Make Ahead and Storage
This is a make ahead salad, which is exactly why it turns up at every barbecue.
- Roast the kumara up to 2 days ahead. Cool it, refrigerate it in a container, and bring it back to room temperature before assembling.
- Dressing, up to 3 days ahead. It genuinely improves overnight as the curry powder settles in. Whisk it before using.
- Bacon, up to 1 day ahead. Cook it, cool it, and keep it in the fridge. Crisp it in a dry pan for 1 minute before it goes in.
- Fully assembled. Best within 4 hours. It's still very good the next day, but the bacon softens and the capsicum loses its snap.
- Refrigerator. Airtight, up to 3 days once dressed. Let it sit out for 20 minutes before serving, because the dressing tightens when cold.
- Freezer. No. A creamy dressing splits and roasted kumara turns to water. Don't.
- Taking it to a barbecue. Carry the components separately and combine on arrival. It takes two minutes and it's noticeably better.
What to Serve It With
It was built for a grill, so that's where it shines.
- Lamb. Butterflied leg or chops. The most New Zealand pairing there is and the sweetness of the kumara is fantastic against it.
- Sausages. The unglamorous truth of most barbecues, and this salad makes them look sophisticated.
- Grilled chicken thighs. Simple, salted, charred at the edges.
- A sharp green salad. Something with lemon and bite alongside, to cut through the cream.
One bowl, one grill, one very happy table. Give it a try!
Recipe
New Zealand Kumara and Bacon Salad
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 ½ pounds kumara or orange sweet potato peeled, cut into ¾ inch dice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt for roasting
- 8 ounces streaky bacon diced
- 1 small red onion finely diced
- 1 red capsicum (red bell pepper) diced
- ⅓ cup pine nuts toasted
- ⅓ cup coriander (cilantro) leaves roughly chopped, or flat leaf parsley
Curried Dressing
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
- 1 teaspoon honey use ½ teaspoon with sweeter American sweet potato
- 1 pinch salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
Roast and Cook
- Heat the oven to 425F. Toss the diced kumara with the olive oil and salt and spread it in a single layer on a large tray, using two trays if needed.
- Roast 25 to 30 minutes, turning once halfway, until the edges are dark and slightly crisp. Cool completely on the tray.
- Cook the diced bacon in a dry pan over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, until properly crisp. Drain on paper towels.
Dress and Assemble
- Whisk the sour cream, mayonnaise, vinegar, curry powder, honey and black pepper together. Let the dressing sit 10 minutes so the curry powder hydrates.
- Tip the cooled kumara into a large bowl with the red onion, capsicum and most of the coriander. Add three quarters of the dressing and fold gently with a spatula, adding the rest only if needed.
- Fold in the bacon and pine nuts just before serving, scatter the remaining coriander over the top, and serve at room temperature or cold.
Notes
- Cool the kumara first: warm kumara absorbs the dressing and goes pasty. This is the most common mistake.
- Kumara vs US sweet potato: golden kumara is drier and less sweet. With American orange sweet potato, roast at 425F and cut the honey to ½ teaspoon.
- Single layer on the tray: a crowded tray steams instead of roasting.
- Curry powder: mild yellow curry powder, and let the dressing rest 10 minutes so it stops tasting dusty.
- Bacon last: fold it in right before serving so it stays crisp.
- Make ahead: kumara 2 days, dressing 3 days, bacon 1 day. Combine on arrival.
- Storage: fridge up to 3 days once dressed. Do not freeze, the dressing splits.
