Recipes

Roasted Beet, Orange & Fennel Salad

This summer salad combines an assortment of flavours that will treat your tastebuds

By Caren McSherry /

Credit: iStock / Olha_Afanasieva

Who knew? Beets, oranges, and fennel combine to make a tasty trio

This fresh summer salad – made with beets, oranges and fennel – will tease your tongue with its many delicious flavours

The crisp, bright taste of fennel and the intense richness of beet, topped with the fresh citrus of orange segments, make for an amazing salad that just dances in your mouth.

Ingredients

Dressing:

  • 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  • ⅓ cup blood-orange vinegar
  • ⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salad:

  • 2 large red beets, peeled & boiled
  • 1 medium head fresh fennel
  • 3 large navel oranges
  • ½ cup finely sliced purple onion
  • 12 sliced kalamata olives
  • ½ cup coarsely chopped fresh mint leaves (for garnish)
  • ⅓ cup chopped toasted pistachio nuts (for garnish)
  • Sea salt to taste
  • Fresh ground pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Place the Dijon mustard in a bowl. Add the vinegar and whisk. Slowly whisk in the oil. Set the dressing aside until serving.
  2. When the boiled beets are cool enough to handle, slice them thinly, either by hand or using a mandolin. Set aside.
  3. Trim the fennel by cutting in half and removing the core. Slice the fennel thinly on a mandolin. Set aside.
  4. Peel the oranges, then carefully cut down either side of each orange segment to eliminate the connective membrane. Set aside the segments.
  5. To assemble the salad, choose a large serving tray and lay the fennel on one side, leaving a space in the centre.
  6. Lay the beets on the opposite side overlapping in an attractive pattern. Heap the orange segments in the centre gap. Evenly lay the purple onion slices over top of the whole salad and top with the olives. Drizzle the dressing all over, then garnish with the fresh mint and toasted pistachios.
  7. Grind the pepper all over and finish with good pinches of fleur de sel.

Serves 6.

Listen to Caren McSherry Thursdays between 11 a.m. and 11:40 a.m. on CKNW 98.

Originally published in TVW. For daily programming updates and on-screen Entertainment news, subscribe to the free TVW e-newsletters, or purchase a subscription to the weekly magazine.