With all the hearty, even heavy, traditional foods that go along with holiday meals, it’s great to have a light bright tasting salad to tickle your taste buds.
This is a wonderful potluck option – fast and easy, but oh so tasty.
Please use all organic ingredients (or as close as you can get)
1/2 big box organic spring greens (spinach is great as well)
seeds from 1/2 big pomegranate
1/2 big red onion, sliced very thinly
1 – 3 mandarin oranges (depending on size)
1/2 – 1 cup pecans, broken into halves
I sometimes add a cup of chopped celery as well.
Dressing:
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp maple syrup (amber grade)
a dash of whatever hot sauce you have on hand (eg. Tabasco, or even the juice from pickled hot peppers) a sprinkle of whatever really high quality salt you have on hand (No good stuff? Don’t add it in.)
The big trick for the tastiest salad is to marinate the pomegranate, onion, oranges and pecans for half an hour or more. Just make sure you reserve a few pomegranate seeds and orange sections for topping.
At the last minute you toss everything in with the greens, add the fruit topping and YUMMINESS! You get the rich deep flavours of the marinated morsels adding a pop to the light touch of the greens … perfect counterpoint to traditional Christmas fare.
Enjoy, joy joy!
Nutrition:
- Pecans offer high quality fats and antioxidants
- Spinach is full of zinc, Vitamin K and folate.
- Pomegranate seeds have lots of folate, Vitamins C and K
- and the list goes on and on …
Find the 12 Days of Christmas Day 4 Recipe here (Cashew Balls)
Find the 12 Days of Christmas Day 3 Recipe here (Speculaas)
Find the 12 Days of Christmas Day 2 Recipe here (Nuts and Bolts)
Find the 12 Days of Christmas Day 1 Recipe here (Black & White Muffins)
For more recipes just like this one, you might like my gluten and dairy free cookbooks: Celebrations (holiday recipes), Recipes for Loving The Body You’re In and Savoury ‘n’ Sweet: Treats for Every Occasion