This Christmas salad is a blend of mixed greens, oranges, pomegranate, feta cheese and candied pecans, all tossed in a homemade dressing. An easy and festive salad that is the perfect addition to any holiday menu!
When I’m looking for a salad that features winter produce, I turn to favorites such as kale salad, brussels sprouts salad and this colorful and refreshing Christmas salad.
If I’m making the menu for the holidays, I always include at least one salad for nutrition and to provide a lighter counterpart to the heavier main course options. This Christmas salad features a sweet and savory blend of fruit, cheese and nuts that ends up being the perfect flavor combination.
How do you make Christmas salad?
This salad starts with small oranges such as tangerines or clementines, which are peeled and placed in a bowl of mixed greens along with feta cheese, candied pecans and pomegranate seeds. Make a homemade dressing with a few simple ingredients, then pour it over the salad and toss to combine. Serve immediately and enjoy!
Tips for the perfect salad
- You can use canned mandarin oranges, or any variety of fresh orange that is peeled and cut into segments. I prefer the fresh oranges as they have a better texture than the canned variety.
- I like to buy a block of feta cheese and crumble it myself. Pre-crumbled feta cheese often contains anti-caking agents and stabilizers, and it doesn’t have as good of a flavor in my opinion.
- You can buy candied pecans at the grocery store, or make your own with my recipe.
- When I’m looking to save on prep time, I buy a container of pomegranate seeds at the grocery store instead of removing the seeds from a whole pomegranate. I also get a tub of pre-washed greens to make life a little easier.
Make ahead instructions
One of the most important features of a holiday salad is that it can be prepared in advance, because no one wants to be in the kitchen chopping produce on Christmas. Feel free to make the salad dressing up to 3 days in advance. Just store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it, then shake well and pour over the salad. The oranges and pomegranates can be prepped up to one day in advance. When you’re ready to eat, simply place the ingredients in a bowl with the lettuce, add the dressing and serve.
Christmas salad flavor variations
This salad is fabulous as-is, but you can add other ingredients to make it your own.
- Fruit: Instead of oranges, try another cold weather fruit such as apples, pears or persimmons.
- Nuts: While I think the pecans go well with the flavors in the salad, other options include almonds, walnuts or even cashews. You can choose roasted or candied nuts, but I feel the candied nuts add a nice crunch and sweetness.
- Cheese: Swap out the feta for blue cheese, shaved parmesan, ricotta salata or small mozzarella balls.
- Add-Ins: Feel free to add other ingredients such as shaved fennel, red onions, avocado or dried cranberries.
You can’t go wrong with this salad, in fact, I make it all winter long!
More salad recipes you’ll enjoy
Christmas Salad Video
Christmas Salad
Ingredients
For the salad
- 7 cups mixed spring greens
- 1 1/4 cups orange segments mandarin oranges, clementines or tangerines
- 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds can substitute dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbled
- 1/2 cup candied pecans roughly chopped
For the dressing
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon shallot minced
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place the mixed greens, oranges, pomegranate seeds, feta cheese and pecans in a large bowl.
- Place all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl, whisk until smooth.
- Drizzle the dressing over the salad mixture to taste, then gently toss to coat. You may have dressing left over. Serve immediately.
My daughter made this salad at Christmas it was absolutely delicious. It’s getting warm here so the other night I made this salad for dinner with side of chicken cutlets it is such a refreshing salad, it’s ours new summer salad to! Note* first salad used mandarin oranges second time used fresh naval oranges they made the entire salad. Use an orange!
Love this salad. It’s my go to when I have guests over. The dressing is good with other salads also and I make it all the time.
Just bought all the ingredients for this salad & am excited to try it! Can you give a starting point for salt & pepper quantities in the dressing? Hard to guess when I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like. Thank you for sharing, looks delicious!
You can start with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper!
It was visually perfect for Christmas dinner and was delicious. My family loved it!
This is an excellent yet simple salad. We made it previously with a different recipe and poppyseed dressing. We then tried your recipe and greatly preferred your version (the honey mustard dressing). Delicious! My wife said it was “the bomb”.