This Refreshing Fennel Salad recipe is light, sweet, tangy with a hint of anise flavor. The perfect accent salad to add to the dinner table. The dressing is very light allowing the fennel and apple flavors to really shine, a perfect Whole Food Plant Based salad, oil free, refined sugar free, and no processed ingredients.
Hi! Ameera here!
I love fennel, and I love apples. This recipe comes together in a perfectly refreshing light salad that boasts the fennel’s naturally pronounced licorice flavor.
Fennel is one of those vegetables that gets a bad rap. When combined with the right pairings of vegetables and fruit, it can create a beautifully delicious and fragrant dish.
We are avid gardeners. We come from a long line of Italians who love to work the land. Most Italians take great pride in showing off their beautiful bounty of fruits and vegetables. They can literally create a garden oasis out of any old patch of dirt. Italian hands instinctively know soil, it’s in the blood. LOL
Every year my dad and I spend hours discussing what plants we will grow, and where we will place them in our 20 ft by 30 ft patch of dirt. We enjoy plotting it all out, it gives us a nice frame of reference. I would love to change things up a bit by introducing raised beds, but my dad solidly refuses. He feels like raised beds would be too confining and keeping the soil on the ground, rather than elevated boxes, works perfectly fine in his opinion. Maybe someday I’ll get him to try a raise bed garden out 😉
Our Italian neighbor, Gino, is a gardening wonder. We are always in awe of his ability to produce an abundance of vegetables. He has 3 separate gardens on his land. Each garden is a thing of beauty.
Gino and his wife, Assunta, are retired and they spend their summer days tending their beautiful gardens. I aspire to Gino’s gardening wondrousness. We all do. My dad is always marveling at how beautiful Gino’s gardens are, and trust me they are AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS!
On any given summer or fall day, Gino will arrive to share his bounty with us; he is so sweet and generous. He plants such a wide variety of vegetables, many of which we do not plant.
One vegetable in particular that he shares with us is fennel. We don’t plant fennel, and it is always nice to receive home grown veggies that we don’t plant. I love having fresh fennel to make beautiful salads.
I think the only thing that we grow in our garden that Gino doesn’t grow are watermelons, which we love to share with him. My dad loves to grow watermelons, and they are sooo delicious and sweet. The beautiful watermelon in the photo above weighed a whopping 42 pounds. It was massive. Dad had to use the wheel barrow to haul it in from the garden.
While I am a huge melon fan, I feel like they take up way too much space, and we could easily fit two more rows of something else in the garden. I think we may just have to see if we can expand the garden, just a little 😉
Last year, we grew collard greens for the first time. All I can say is “WOW”, collard greens are the plant that keeps giving, which is perfect because we love collard greens! The plants keep reproducing over and over again; definitely, a winner for sure.
I also love planting potatoes, and of course, what Italian garden wouldn’t be complete without tomatoes!
I honestly can’t wait to start digging this year. Maybe, we’ll add something new to our garden!
Robin here!
We really enjoyed this salad. It is even better the second day as the dressing seems to permeate the fennel and deepens the flavor. The apples perfectly complement the licorice flavor of the fennel.
We love to garden. TP and Monkey are the family’s primary gardeners. I tend to handle the backend work like washing the vegetables, etc. I am allergic to bee stings so I have to be careful. Every year, my reactions become more severe, so I tend to play it safe.
TP loves San Marzano tomatoes for his Italian pasta sauce, yet I find it comical that he won’t plant them. He sticks with Jet Stars, Better Boys, Early Girls, and plum tomatoes. Occasionally, he will grow some Beefsteaks, which are one of my favorites. I love them. They are a huge, juicy tomato, but, I would really love for him to grow some San Marzanos. He is a tomato growing genius, so I am not sure why he steers away from growing them, especially since he loves them so much for Italian sauce, maybe, next year. I am not holding my breath! LOL
Products used:
- Vegetable Mandolin
Refreshing Fennel Salad
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 Servings 1x
- Category: Side
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Refreshing Fennel Salad recipe is light, sweet, tangy with a hint of anise flavor. The perfect accent salad to add to the dinner table. The dressing is very light allowing the fennel and apple flavors to really shine, a perfect Whole Food Plant Based salad, oil free, refined sugar free, and no processed ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 crisp apple, cored and thinly sliced*
- 2 fennel bulbs, leaves separated and cleaned
- 1 medium carrot, cut into 3rds and thinly slices (peels)
- 5 celery stalks, thinly sliced on the diagonal
- 1 lemon, freshly squeezed (about 2–3 Tablespoons)
- ½ medium red onion, thinly sliced into long strips*
- 2 teaspoons organic 100% pure maple syrup
- Sea salt to taste
- Freshly cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Thinly slice ½ of a red onion into thin, long strips, then place in a small bowl of water to soak for 5 minutes. *
- Core the apple. Thinly slice 1 crisp apple and place into a large bowl, squeeze the lemon juice over the apples.
- Clean the fennel leaves by separating them, then place them in separate bowl of water, and soak for a few minutes to remove the dirt. Swish them around to remove any dirt stuck to the leaves. Wipe the individual leaves dry, then thinly slice and place into the bowl with apples and splash the lemon juice over them.
- Thinly slice the celery stalks. Cut on the diagonal and place into the bowl with the apples and fennel. Splash the lemon juice over them.
- Thinly slice the carrots into super thin strips with a carrot peeler, then place into the bowl. Splash the lemon juice over them.
- Remove the red onion slices from the water and pat down with a paper towel to remove any excess water and place into the bowl. Splash the lemon juice over them.
- Drizzle the maple syrup over the salad, then lightly season with salt and pepper.
- Gently mix the salad and test the seasoning. This salad has a very light dressing and is very refreshing. Go lightly on the maple syrup to ensure the flavors of the apple and vegetables shine through.
- Place in an airtight container for several hours or overnight before serving.
Notes
Apples: Select a firm, crisp apple such as a granny smith or honey crisp. Leave the skin on.
Red Onion: Soaking red onion slices in water removes the bite and mellows out the flavor.
Storage: Store leftovers in the refrigerator.
I’m confused. the photo looks like the fennel bulb is in the salad but the instructions call for the fennel leaves to be in the salad but it doesn’t appear to be very green in the photo. please elaborate.
Hi there Kerry, Thank you for your question. This recipe uses two fennel bulbs. In Step 3, we state the following: Clean the fennel leaves by separating them, then place them in separate bowl of water, and soak for a few minutes to remove the dirt. Swish them around to remove any dirt stuck to the leaves. Wipe the individual leaves dry, then thinly slice and place into the bowl with apples and splash the lemon juice over them. Essentially, you are cutting the stalks off the fennel bulbs, cleaning the leaves and then slicing them very thin. Fennel bulbs are actually… Read more »