10 Winter Salads That Steal the Show
A collection of much-loved winter salads. The ones I reach for when the weather cools and the produce turns bright and colorful. Fresh and vibrant salads that are a welcome contrast to the season’s heavier meals.
I love a good winter salad. Cold weather welcomes bright salads, rich in color, flavor, and texture. The markets right now are all about chicories, citrus, and avocado. There are carrots, celeriac, and other roots. And then mushrooms, apples, nuts, and kale for days. For me, it's a favorite time of year for salads. They provide a counterpoint to meals that can lean heavier this time of year. With citrus in season, colorful chicories, and bursts of flavor from pomegranate, dates, olives, apples and persimmons it’s the season for big, bold salads of all sorts. Here are a few favorites!
1. Broccoli Apple Salad: A dreamy broccoli apple salad made from all-star ingredients. Bright broccoli florets, crisp apples, crunchy fried shallots, candied nuts and slivered red onions are tossed in a honey-kissed, creamy, almond dressing. This is also great with persimmons.
2. Kale and Pecorino Salad: A base of finely shredded Lacinato kale to which an abundance of toasted pecans, pecorino cheese, and shredded Brussels sprouts are added. A strong lemon-tahini dressing is leveraged to brighten things up and take the raw edge off of the kale.
3. Anna's California Salad: Seasonal greens and beans are tossed with an assertive, creamy miso dressing. There are crunchy seeds, and broccoli, and avocado - it all comes together into a brilliant, beautiful, feel-good salad.
4. Tassajara Cabbage Salad: Inspired by a recipe in The Complete Tassajara Cookbook, a warm winter salad made from sautéed shredded red cabbage. Feta, balsamic vinegar and golden raisins make it sweet and salty, rich with color, texture and flavor.
5. Apple Salad: This salad is big on crunch. There's crunch from crisp apples, celery, and nuts. Pair that with the creaminess in the dressing? It's a nice contrast. It has heirloom apples, shaved celery, and toasted nuts of your choosing. The dressing is creamy and spiked with rosemary, garlic and champagne vinegar.
6. Market Kale Salad: Here you see kale, farro, lots of avocado, carrots and fennel tossed with a creamy green garlic dressing. It's as good as it sounds.
7. Farro Salad with Buttermilk Dressing: Make this one with shaved winter market finds like carrots, shredded kale, chopped cabbage and the like.
8. Genius Kale Salad: The kale salad that beat all others for a special spot in the Food52 Genius Recipes cookbook, beating out all others for a slice of limelight. Shredded kale is tossed with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice, and accented with rough-cut almonds, roasted squash, strong chunks of good cheddar cheese, and whispy shavings of Pecorino.
9. Ginger Jeweled Salad: Mixed leafy salad greens, wild rice, toasted hazelnuts, dried figs and pluots, are tossed with a simple ginger juice vinaigrette and spiked with just a hint of jalapeño.
10. Bar Tartine Cauliflower Salad: A beautiful cauliflower salad from the Bar Tartine cookbook - a crunchy, hearty mixture of cauliflower, seeds, chiles, radishes, chickpeas, and green onions slathered in an enveloping garlicky yogurt dressing.
Bonus! Bar Tartine Cauliflower Salad: Plump barley grains are tossed with sprouts (or greens), nuts, avocado, a bit of cheese, then dolloped with a simple yogurt sauce.
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Hi Heidi! Since new years I’ve been looking for recipes like these. Looking forward to try them out. Cheers!
Hi Heidi! Great collection of beautiful salads. I like the salad. This post is nice. My sister is always looking for creative recipe, so I am going to convey her. Hope fully we will get one more recipe to taste. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Heidi! I love love love this salad! Thank you so much for sharing:) On another note I have recieved two vegetables from my produce box that I don’t know what to do with( besides possibly roast) Celery Root and Kohlrabi, any ideas? Thank you!!!
Just made Anna’s Miso Avocado salad and it is amazing! I fried Corona beans and used kale for the greens. Thank you!
So much love in one bowl! I will definitely cook this dish more often than not this winter 🙂
Thank you so much for posting these, Heidi! I’ve been fairly obsessed with chicories and dark, bitter greens as an antidote to the “alcoholidays” but have been at a loss as to how to prepare them. Thank you for sharing this collection – I’m all over all of these salads.
Really great collection of beautiful salads! I love a good winter salad as well! And I’m loving all of the avocados in the stores these days! Happy New Year, Heidi!
Thank you Heidi, it’s now when we rethink all of the eating and drinking we have done during the holidays and salads just sound good. Happy New Year to you as well!
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