Here’s an easy Christmas salad which makes a lovely light starter to your Christmas dinner. It’s full of festive flavours and seasonal ingredients, making it a beautiful Winter salad to enjoy all season.
My Christmas salad is full of flavour and texture with peppery greens, fresh apple slices, crunchy walnuts, chewy cranberries, sweet pomegranate, and plenty of zippy vegan feta. All tossed together with a delicious tangy-sweet maple tahini dressing.
If you don’t have time to read the recipe for my Christmas salad in full now, feel free to PIN it or bookmark this page to come back to later:
I made this salad for Christmas 2018 as my contribution to my family’s starters. The meat-eaters had traditional smoked salmon platters and mini camembert to tuck into, so this was my vegan-friendly starter, but everyone loved it and kept going back for more – typical haha!
Is this Christmas Salad healthy?
All in all, yes.
It’s a lovely starter for those who don’t have a massive appetite for more decadent foods. Plus, the array of ingredients means it boasts lots of nutrients and vitamins.
The salad starts with a bed of curly kale and baby spinach – both of which are powerhouses of nutrition and they’re packed with vitamin K.
Walnuts are a brilliant source of omega-3, and the mixed seeds add extra proteins.
In this Christmas salad, I have also incorporated a generous handful of microgreens which I love! These are brilliant sources of antioxidants, and most varieties tend to be rich in potassium, zinc, iron and magnesium. In cooking, they’re a popular garnish in many dishes and are well known for their different flavour profiles – from spicy to nutty to lemony and more.
In this salad, I used a mix of pea, sunflower, radish and beetroot microgreens. You can buy mixed microgreens from your local health store, fresh groceries or supermarket.
Here’s how you make my Christmas salad:
Firstly, you need to prepare your maple tahini dressing. Tahini is sesame seed paste and can be found in all the leading supermarkets. It’s well-known for being a key ingredient in making homemade hummus, but its creamy consistency is excellent for salad dressings. Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl – feel free to add extra water if you want the dressing runny.
A well-sharpened knife will ease the job of prepping your spinach, kale, apple slices and nuts. Discard the hardy bits of kale as these are quite hard to chew and digest.
Once that’s all done, then it’s merely a case of putting it all together on a large serving plate with the remaining ingredients.
Be sure to add in lots of pomegranates – it adds a ruby red pop of colour and sweet bursts of flavour. You can get by pre-prepared pomegranate to make your life easier too.
A couple of branded products I used in this recipe include:
- Violife’s vegan feat cheese – it’s lovely and creamy and pairs well with the sweet and nutty ingredients
- Good4U Garlic Herb Seed Topper – I found this in Tesco and thought it would add some nice crunchy texture, plus the roasted peas and edamame add additional protein
I hope you enjoy this Christmas salad recipe. I’d love it if you could leave me some feedback and a cheeky follow on social.
If you’re already planning your vegan Christmas or need some ideas for a vegan roast dinner, then check out these recipes of mine:
- Beet Bruschetta with Sweet Zest & Peppery Infusions
- ‘MEATY’ Vegan Mushroom Wellington
- Tasty Roasted Veg: Learn How to Make Gorgeous Roasties and Maple Parsnips
Much love, G x
Colourful & Festive Christmas Salad
My Christmas salad is full of flavour and texture with peppery greens, fresh apple slices, crunchy walnuts, chewy cranberries, sweet pomegranate, and plenty of zippy vegan feta. All tossed together with a delicious tangy-sweet maple tahini dressing.
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- 2 handfuls of baby spinach
- 2 handfuls of curly kale
- A small handful of fresh rocket
- 40g microgreens
- 60g chopped walnuts
- 60g chopped cashews and cranberry mix
- 3 tbsp pomegranate
- 20g Good4U garlic herb seed topper
- 1 gala apple, finely sliced
- Violife vegan feta cheese
For the Maple Tahini Dressing:
- 2 tbsp tahini
- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 5 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp lime or lemon juice
Instructions
- Start by making your dressing in a small bowl. Whisk together the dressing ingredients until it's smooth and creamy - you can whisk in up to five tablespoons of water until you reach your desired consistency. Then place your dressing to one side.
- Roughly chop the baby spinach and kale. Discard these hardy bits of kale as they’re quite hard to chew and digest. Place both greens in a large bowl and mix up well.
- Next, finely slice your gala apple and roughly chop your walnuts and cashew and dried cranberry mix.
- On a large and pretty serving plate, start with a bed of mixed kale and spinach. Then sprinkle over some peppery rocket and micro greens. Add the dried cranberries, cashew, walnuts, apple slices, fresh pomegranate, and crunchy seed topper.
- Spoon over some dressing leaving the rest for guests to serve themselves.
- Finally, crumble over some creamy vegan feta – this will taste so good with the walnut and fresh apple. Enjoy!
