In a recent Menu Monday post, we talked about the vegetables that are in season this chilly time of year. This recipe for Winter Salad honors seasonal vegetables and fruits, with a few other additions to round out the flavors and textures nicely.
Winter Salad Ingredients:
- Your favorite salad greens – spinach is a great base
- Pomegranates – vibrantly in-season in earlier winter, and bursting with flavor
- Walnuts – considered to be warming, helping us in colder months
- Roasted root vegetables – enjoy butternut squash, sweet potatoes, or beets
- Shaved Brussels sprouts – pan-sear them or add them raw
- Goat cheese – creamy and salty to balance out the flavors and textures in the salad
- A basic dressing of white wine vinegar and olive oil, mixed with minced shallots, salt, and pepper
The beauty of any salad is how much it can be customized. This salad can also shine with mandarin slices; dried cranberries; shaved/thinly sliced fennel, carrots, or cabbage; any other root vegetable roasted; diced apples; or any other nuts you can find. Also, if your pomegranate yielded tons of seeds or there was a sale on walnuts, just toss in more as you wish!
PS – everyone has their own way to open a pomegranate to get out those sweet, tart seeds. I personally enjoy doing it the difficult way as a small form of meditation – cutting off the top and bottom, segmenting them, and carefully guiding the seeds out. But I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea! Below is a link to a YouTube video from Yahoo! that shows how to access those seeds in a few short seconds.
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– Samantha Marks, RD, LDN
Registered Dietitian
