Citrus fruits are abundant during the winter and they offer many benefits to help you survive this cold season: they can boost your mood, improve digestion and support your immune system. This Citrus Salad with Fennel and Radish heavily features citrus components as well as other palate cleanser ingredients, making it a great dish at any dinner table.
A wonderful thing about salads is that anything can be a salad. I can’t think of a more forgiving type of dish. And you know what, salads also encourage imagination because there aren’t really any rules. You get to make the rules.
Citrus Salad with Fennel and Radish
In its most basic form, a salad requires only a bunch of greens as the base, some oil and vinegar as dressing, salt and pepper as seasoning. That’s a very purist way to make a salad, a very reliable method, and a great foundation on which elaborate versions are built.
This citrus salad with fennel and radish has no greens but sits on a bed of orange slices. See, you take the concept of a salad and stretch it so far that it doesn’t resemble the thing you started with at all. That’s called cooking. Except there’s no cooking involved here and I have no idea what I’m talking about.
But back to the salad formula, following that logic you can really add anything to a bowl and call it a salad: crunchy elements (think nuts, croutons, pumpkin seeds, etc), sweet elements (apples, honey, maple syrup, cranberries, so on and so forth), you also add creamy elements (plate it over a bed of labneh or Greek yogurt or brie cheese), you get the idea.
For this one specifically, I wanted it to feature winter produce and the season is really all about citrus. Feel free to use any type of orange, anything you can find at your local grocery store.
Because the other ingredients are basically palate cleanser vegetables, the citrus really shines here. This salad can be served alongside any main dish, because it’s so agreeable and mild.
Ingredients for Citrus Salad with Fennel and Radish
This is the kind of salad that works better as a side dish than a meal in itself. It’s crunchy and neutral, which makes it easy to pair with most dishes.
If you don’t like radishes, try adding cucumber or celery. If you don’t feel like citrus, you can add apples or pears. Think of vegetables that are mostly water and has mild flavor profiles. You know, basically crunchy water.
You can certainly try a number of variations and adapt it to any season. It makes a great salad for a summer dinner, served with roasted potatoes and chicken for a simple meal, for example.
A lot of the times when I’m making a salad, I can’t be bothered to whisk the dressing ingredients separately. I usually just dump it all in the bowl and toss it all together.
But for a special dinner, it’s important to have a thoroughly mixed salad. In that case, I like seasoning the ingredients in a bowl before transferring to a serving plate, but I’ll be honest here: sometimes I’ll even skip that step entirely and just plate the salad and pour the dressing over it. It’s still a salad and it’s still dressed!
On the whole, this salad is so refreshing and hydrating, it’s just another way to consume water. You can garnish it with any fresh herbs, from parsley to dill, or you can just use fennel fronds. That’s what I did. It’s important to make the most out of your produce and not let anything go to waste!
If you make this citrus salad with fennel and radish, please let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you and about your favorite salad.
Ingredients
2 medium oranges
1/2 bulb fennel
5 radishes
1/4 cup walnuts
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp orange juice
salt and black pepper
fresh herbs (I used funnel fronds)
Directions
Prepare the ingredients: using a sharp knife, cut the skin and white pith from the oranges. Reserve one half for the dressing. Cut them into slices and squeeze the reserved half to extract the juice.
Core and thinly slice the fennel. Reserve a few of the fronds. Thinly slice the radishes.
Toast the walnuts: add the walnuts to a skillet over medium heat. Toast until browned and fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes. Immediately transfer to a cutting board to cool. Roughly chop.
Make the dressing: in a small bowl, stir the olive oil with the honey and orange juice. Season with salt and pepper
In a serving plate, arrange the orange slices. Drizzle with some of the dressing.
In a separate bowl, toss the fennel and radish with the dressing. Add on top of orange slices. Top with chopped walnuts and garnish with reserved fennel fronds. Serve.
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