Mediterranean Celery Olive Salad! Crisp celery pieces mingle with marinated olives, sliced onions, and succulent date bits to create a medley of flavors and textures that keeps guests coming back for seconds.
This Mediterranean Celery Olive Salad bursts with crunch, briny olives, and a kiss of sweetness from dates, delivering a satisfying balance of salty and sweet in every bite. Ideal for potlucks, picnics, or holiday tables, this refreshing salad brightens any spread with its tangy, vibrant dressing. Beyond its delicious profile, this salad is a nutrient powerhouse, packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and immune-boosting ingredients, making it a smart, delicious addition to a well-rounded meal plan.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Hi there, Ameera here!
We devoured this delicious celery salad, and it quickly became a new kitchen favorite. You don’t have to be a celery lover to fall in love with this salad, the juicy olives, crisp celery, and sweet-tart date bites come together in a surprisingly harmonious way.
You gotta give this one a try, especially if you’re hunting for a bright, crowd-pleasing dish that travels well. The combination of tangy vinaigrette, crisp textures, and pantry-friendly ingredients makes it feel both effortless and pantry-smart, perfect for meal prep or a last-minute centerpiece that wows guests.
Tips for Success:
- Flavor Profile: Mediterranean Celery Salad is full of crunchiness, salty, and sweet. It is delicious, and perfect for your next potluck, picnic, or holiday dinner table. It is refreshing, and full of delicious tang with tidbits of date sweetness.
- Peeling Celery Ribs – Optional: We like to peel the celery ribs with a vegetable peeler to remove the tougher, stringy elements on the outside of the celery ribs. It really elevates the texture and mouthfeel. It takes a tad bit longer, but it totally worth it.
- Amount of Celery: We used 24 medium-sized celery ribs or 1 lb. 2 oz. after peeling and slicing which equated to 4 cups of chopped celery.
- Cutting the Celery: Cut the celery ribs into ½-inch pieces. We suggest slicing the celery ribs on the diagonal for optimum presentation. If a celery rib is exceptionally wide, slice the celery rib in half lengthwise before slicing into pieces.
- Optimum Presentation: If you are looking for optimum presentation and crunchy deliciousness, then we suggest the following. We suggest not dressing the salad until right before serving.
- The Day Before or Earlier in the Day:
- Make the dressing, refrigerate.
- Chop, slice, dice each of the Base Ingredients and store individually in the refrigerator. Except the pistachios, keep at room temperature.
- Green Onions: Chop and store separately in glass container, then cover the container in plastic wrap.
- Right before Serving:
- Place all the Base Ingredients into a large bowl, mix well.
- Stir the dressing, if too thick add a tiny amount of water (or vinegar) and stir well.
- Pour the dressing over the Base Ingredients, mix thoroughly, then present in a serving bowl.
- The Day Before or Earlier in the Day:
- Spanish (Manzanilla) Pimento Stuffed Green Olives: This salad is all about those tangy pimento stuffed green olives. We do not suggest leaving them out. Give them a fine chop for maximum distribution of tang in the salad.
- Nuts: We used roasted and salted pistachios. We gave them a rough chop for a better mouth feel. You can use your favorite roasted/toasted nuts.
- Pure Maple Syrup: The sweetness of this dish is totally within your control. Start on the low-end and increase as you feel necessary. You may find that the maple syrup is not needed at all since there are finely chopped Medjool dates through the salad.
- Medjool Dates: We suggest using Medjool dates as they are very soft and pliable. Cut them into tiny pieces so there is an even distribution of soft date pieces throughout the salad. Do not use dried out dates that are tough and overly dry.
- Rough Chop Chickpeas: Give the chickpeas a quick and fast chop so that you have a mixture of whole chickpeas and some that are roughly chopped. This creates a better mouthfeel.
- Tahini Substitutions: The tahini can be substituted with your favorite nut or seed butter. We have not kitchen tested any substitutions, but these substitutions will typically work.
- Table Salt: If using table salt, you should use less table salt than the amount listed in the ingredients as sea salt crystals are larger than table salt crystals. Since table salt crystals are very fine, less table salt is required to season a dish. We would suggest starting with about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of sea salt listed. You can always add more salt but cannot take it away. We recommend using sea salt as it is less refined than table salt.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Leftovers and Freezing:
Leftovers will generally keep 5 days in the refrigerator. Store in a covered air-tight container.
This salad does not freeze well.
Pantry Products:
- Roasted Pistachios: We used Wonderful Pistachios No Shells, Roasted and Salted. Feel free to use your favorite roasted and salted pistachios.
- Tahini: We used Ziyad Premium Tahini (Sesame Paste). Feel free to use your favorite brand of tahini.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Kitchen Equipment:
- Vegetable peeler (optional)
If you try this tasty dish, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
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Mediterranean Celery Olive Salad
- Prep Time: 25 Minutes
- Total Time: 25 Minutes
- Yield: 7 Cups 1x
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: Mediterranean Inspired
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This Mediterranean Celery Olive Salad bursts with crunch, briny olives, and a kiss of sweetness from dates, delivering a satisfying balance of salty and sweet in every bite.
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients:
- 4 cups chopped celery *
- 1 – [ 15.5 oz. can ] chickpeas, drained, rinsed, rough chop
- 2/3 cup finely chopped pimento stuffed Spanish green olives
- 6 to 8 green onions, sliced
- ½ cup roughly chopped roasted and salted pistachios (or other nuts) *
- 5 Medjool dates, pitted, fine dice (+/-)
Dressing Ingredients:
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 Tablespoons tahini (+/-) *
- 2 teaspoons pure maple syrup (+/-) *
- 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning Mix
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- Pinch to 1 teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
Instructions
- Place all the Dressing Ingredients into a small bowl, whisk well until smooth and emulsified, set aside.
- Place all the Salad Ingredients into a large bowl, mix well to combine, then pour the Dressing over top, mix well. Serve and enjoy! Refrigerate leftovers.
Notes
Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used.
Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Servings: 7 (makes 7 cups)
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