This Cherry Orange Christmas Salad is festive, colorful, easy-to-make and delicious

Xmas salad1.jpg — Sarah's Cherry Orange Christmas Salad is a festive medley of holiday flavors featuring dried cherries, oranges, walnuts and blue cheese atop a bed of baby spinach greens.

By Sarah Nasello

December 14, 2022 at 7:35 AM

FARGO 鈥� 鈥楾is the season for fruit, nuts and cheese, and this Cherry Orange Christmas Salad is the perfect side dish to showcase these holiday flavors. Dried cherries, fresh orange sections, walnuts and blue cheese are tossed with fresh spinach leaves and a tart and tangy cider orange vinaigrette to create a salad that is festive, simple and delicious. 鈥淧eople are going to make this salad,鈥� my husband Tony declared after his first mouthful.

In our Italian home, salad is a regular feature at most of our family dinners, and I like to up our game at the holidays to make a salad that can hold its own against the backdrop of more indulgent dishes and sweets. This salad provides a beautiful array of seasonal color 鈥� garnet red cherries and bright orange sections stand out atop a bed of forest green spinach, with accents of purple from thinly sliced red onion.

Texture is just as important as color when it comes to making a great salad, and I look for ways to create balance between the components. Chopped walnuts bring a tender crunch to the chewy dried cherries and soft spinach greens, while crumbled blue cheese adds a touch of velvety cream. Spinach leaves can vary in size, so I take a big pile of the greens and gently chop it a few times to make the greens more consistent with the other ingredients.

As with any dish, flavor is the most important factor, and this salad boasts a symphony of seasonal ingredients that work well together. The cherries and oranges each have their own styles of sweet and sour flavor that are balanced by the creamy blue cheese and subtle bitterness of the walnuts. To prevent the red onion from overpowering the other flavors, I sliced it thinly and then let it marinate in the vinaigrette for 20 minutes to mitigate its spicy bite.

Xmas salad 2.png — To slice the orange into sections, first use a sharp knife to slice around the orange from top to bottom. Next, cut in between the veins inside the orange to remove each section of fruit.

For the orange, I use the zest to flavor the vinaigrette and then I remove the peel and slice the fruit into sections for the salad. Sectioning the orange in this way creates slices that are more delicate and tender than if I simply peel the orange and pull it apart.

The dressing is the final component that pulls this salad together, and this cider orange vinaigrette has a wonderful tang with notes of apple that complement the fruits in the salad. Cider vinegar is combined with extra-virgin olive oil, orange zest, honey, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to create a delicious dressing that will go well with myriad salads.

Xmas salad 3.jpg — Orange zest is added to the Cider Orange Vinaigrette to infuse the dressing with citrus flavor.

This Cherry Orange Christmas Salad is festive, colorful, easy to make and delicious. I hope that you do make it this holiday season and enjoy it as much as we do.

Sarah鈥檚 10^th Anniversary Holiday Giveaway: Congratulations to Anne Leonhart, this week鈥檚 lucky winner of a dozen Italian Butter Sweets from SarahBakes. Next week is the final week in my holiday giveaway and I will be giving away one of my signature frozen quiches, so enter now for a chance to win at !

Cherry Orange Christmas Salad

Serves: 4 to 6

Salad Ingredients:

5 ounces baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped
1/3 cup dried cherries
2 oranges, peeled and cut into sections (zest one of the oranges first for the vinaigrette)
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
录 cup blue cheese crumbles
录 cup red onion, thinly sliced
Cider Orange Vinaigrette
Kosher salt
Black pepper

Vinaigrette Ingredients:

录 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 陆 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon honey
戮 teaspoon kosher salt
录 teaspoon black pepper

Xmas salad 4.jpg — Thin slices of red onion are marinated in the vinaigrette to lessen their spicy bite.

Directions:

Place the vinaigrette ingredients in a small bowl and whisk vigorously until well combined and emulsified, about 1 minute. Place the red onion slices in the vinaigrette and let them marinate for 20 minutes.

In a large bowl, add the spinach and top with most of the dried cherries, orange sections, walnuts and blue cheese, reserving a small amount of each ingredient to garnish the salad. Remove the onions from the vinaigrette and scatter them around the greens. Add all the vinaigrette to the salad and toss until evenly coated.

Xmas salad 5.jpg — Fresh baby spinach leaves are roughly chopped just a few times to make them more consistent in size with the other salad components.

Serve immediately, in a bowl or on a serving platter, garnished with the reserved cherries, oranges, walnuts and blue cheese.

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By Sarah Nasello

鈥淗ome with the Lost Italian鈥� is a weekly column written by Sarah Nasello featuring recipes by her husband, Tony Nasello. The couple owned Sarello鈥檚 in Moorhead and live in Fargo. Readers can reach them at sarahnasello@gmail.com.