Recipe: Fruity Festive Salad
We’re all about a salad stuffed with every green veggie under the sun, but a holiday meal begs for a salad that looks as spectacular as the rest of the meal. A colorful salad. One with the sweetness of the season. So this year we’re making our Fruity Festive Salad.
This salad uses butter lettuce as the base and layers on the goodness from there: bright seedless mandarin orange slices, crunchy slivered almonds, and deeply crimson pomegranate seeds. To complement the sweetness of the fruit, the dressing uses half a tablespoon of an artificial sugar blend that serves a double calorie cutting purpose—more on that below.
Why butter lettuce? Because it is as tender at the kid-favorite iceberg lettuce and nearly as nutritious as kale. It is often ranked at the top of the list of lettuces for vitamin and fiber content, even delivering 1g of protein in a leafy serving. You’ll find varieties of butter lettuce sold as Boston lettuce and Bibb lettuce as well.
Start by prepping your fruit. Peel and segment the oranges, making sure to remove as much of the stringy pith as you can. Next wash your pomegranate and cut it in half. We’re only using the seeds and the easy way to remove them is to hold the pomegranate cut side down in your palm, grab a sturdy wooden spoon, and whack away hard at the skin side. The seeds should come flying out but you’ll need to keep whacking on different sections of the skin to get them all. Any pith that flies out with the seeds can be picked out of the bowl when you’re done.
Pro Tip: Wear an apron! Pomegranate juice will squirt and may stain, so you’ll want to protect surfaces. It’s a good idea to do your whacking over the sink.
Now that your fruit is ready, it’s time to make the dressing. The standard oil and vinegar recipe calls for 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, but we’re not doing those proportions. Our recipe calls for 5 tablespoons olive oil to 4 tablespoons vinegar, which helps to keep the fat and calorie content low. And since we’re using white wine vinegar—or, even better, champagne vinegar—and reducing the tartness further with an artificial sweetener, it is a perfect dressing for a fruit-forward salad.
To complete the salad, add your lettuce to a large serving bowl and toss with the dressing. Then sprinkle the nuts, orange segments, and pomegranate seeds on top.
Pro Tip: Make sure to dress your salad before adding the nuts, fruit and seeds, so that all your beautiful fruit stays on top where your guests can admire it.
Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.
