Orange Fennel Salad

This orange fennel salad came from a pretty intense phase where I was over-ordering vegetables from a produce delivery service. Although it shall remain nameless, said service really would have been budget friendly for me if I had actually used everything I ordered. However, I lack the self-control to only order what I can use when I am picking food from the comfort of my couch. I understand this now! But as part of this experience, occasionally I’d end up with fennel in my box. Or boxes on particularly egregious orders.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do with this crazy looking bulb with leafy fronds.

The first time my coworker mentioned that fennel could be used in a salad, I was surprised. I think because I am a soup-centric person by nature, I gravitated towards the idea of using fennel in soup as an alternative to celery. (That is also fun to dabble in, but not the purpose of this post).

When you combine crunchy fennel, juicy orange, green onions, and something acidic, it makes for a refreshing side dish. I added pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds) and feta for a bit of extra crunch and salt. There are some pretty easy substitutions or omissions for this dish if you’d like to experiment, or if you don’t have all the garnishes on hand.

And just in case you were wondering, fennel and anise come from the same family of plants, but they are not actually the same thing. I found a very succinct explanation here, and a slightly longer explanation of the differences here.

Preparation & Photos

Orange and fennel salad

Wash and chop all of your produce

Vinaigrette

Prepare the vinaigrette by combining red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and parsley in a mason jar and shaking until mixed. You can also whisk this in a bowl.

Assemble

Toss all the produce together in a bowl until well mixed.

Pour the prepared vinaigrette over the salad and toss until well-coated.

Scoop onto a serving plate. Garnish with pepitas and feta before serving

Substitutions

Ratio of orange to Fennel

If you prefer a less sweet side dish, you can definitely add an additional fennel bulb here. I would not recommend adding more orange without more fennel as this is fairly sweet as written.

Onions

Green onions could likely be replaced with thinly sliced red onion or shallots, although I haven’t done so myself. I’d recommend 1/4 cup of thinly sliced red onion or shallot (or less) to start unless you really enjoy a strong onion flavor.

Spices and Vinegar

This tastes just fine without the parsley. If you don’t enjoy vinegar, replacing the red wine vinegar with lemon juice works very well. Honestly, it gives the salad a stronger citrus flavor.

Pepitas

I liked the crunch of the peptitas in this salad. I think if you have almonds that you could chop, that would also be good. You can also omit them entirely and rely on the fennel – fresh fennel has a crunch of its own!

Feta

I will reiterate as I did previously when discussing my tomato pepper salad that a block of feta stored in brine is way better than the pre-crumbled stuff. Here you can feel free to omit it or replace the feta with grated parmesan cheese. I enjoyed the flavor the feta I had on hand added, but it’s just fine without it. It would also cut back on the calories.

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