With bitter greens, sweet bright fruit, pistachios and dates, this mandarin orange salad has chopped kale as its leafy green base and is tossed in a white wine vinaigrette.
Give me a season, and I will come up with a different version of a fruit salad. But it’s always a fruit and green salad because I love the combination of sweet and savory fresh flavor. During spring it’s berries, stone fruit in a summer salad, and in the fall it’s apples and pears. So obviously, winter is citrus.
For this simple salad, I take a much-needed imaginary trip somewhere warm and pair the mandarins with chopped dates and pistachios. It feels kind of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern.
There are so many different kinds of oranges. And mandarins are a category that includes clementines, satusumas and tangerines. They are sweeter than other more tart orange varieties.
One of the things that make mandarins so special is how easy they are to peel, and they have little to no seeds. Because of this, they are often marketed as snacks for kids. You will see California mandarins branded as Halos or Cuties.
Even though you can pretty much find them at the grocery no matter what time of year, the season starts in November, just before the holidays, and goes all the way through May.
Unlike other citrus salads, there is no need to pull out a knife to carefully slice off the peel and white pith especially because the fruit segments are smaller and more delicate than navel and larger orange types.
You can just use you fingers. I like to start with my thumb at one end. Once you begin, the peel comes right off. Then you can break the fruit into orange sections.
This is what you need:
Serve the salad as a main dish or a side salad. You can add shredded rotisserie chicken or sliced chicken breast if you want to add a protein. Crumbled goat cheese is also a good addition if you like cheese on your salads.
If you are not planning to serve or eat the entire salad at one time, do not dress the portion of the salad you are saving. Store the salad and vinaigrette each in a separate airtight container. A mason jar is always great for dressings. If you refrigerate the vinaigrette and the oil in the vinaigrette becomes solid, just let it sit out at room temperature for it to become liquid again.
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With bitter greens, sweet bright fruit, pistachios and dates, this mandarin orange salad has chopped kale as its leafy green base and is tossed in a white wine vinaigrette.
If you aren’t planning to eat the entire salad, portion out what you want to save and do not toss it in the dressing. Store it in an airtight container up to 2 days in a container separate from the vinaigrette.
Keywords: mandarin orange salad, mandarin salad
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