While the bright reds of tomatoes and strawberries may not be in season at Christmas (at least not in North America), there are plenty of tasty seasonal salad ingredients that will bring some cheery red and green to your Christmas feast. The green is pretty easy to come up with, but for seasonal red items your best bets are pomegranate seeds, radicchio, and beets. If less obviously red is okay, ruby grapefruit and persimmons come into play too! A few of my favorite combinations are below.
1. Avocado and Pomegranate Salad
Photo © Molly Watson
Let's just go for the gold straight away: it's just red and green, it's delicious, and it's easier than pie. A salad of creamy green avocado with jewel-like juicy pomegranate seeds. It is stunning and irresistible whether served as pictured or put on a bed of fresh crispy lettuce. The recipe isn't much more complicated than this picture, but check it out at Avocado Pomegranate Salad. (If you've never done it before, see How to Seed a Pomegranate.)
2. Escarole Roasted Beet Salad
Photo © Molly Watson
The sharp taste of fresh escarole is tempered by the sweetness of the beets this pleasingly balanced salad. Roast the beets (see How to Roast Beets here, wash and dry the escarole (see How to Wash Greens here, and make the salad ahead of time so you just need to give it a toss when it's time to eat. See Escarole Beet Salad.
3. Grapefruit Avocado Salad
Photo © Molly Watson
You'll need to get ruby red grapefruit for this to take on a Christmas-y vibe, but the gentle red of darker grapefruit is lovely with the pale green of avocado when arranged on butter lettuce, not to mention how tasty the brilliantly slightly bitter grapefruit is with the smooth avocado. See how to make a Grapefruit Avocado Salad.
4. Radicchio Arugula Date Salad
Photo © Molly Watson
Sweet dates, crunchy hazelnuts, peppery arugula, and bright radicchio work amazingly well together in this crowd-pleasing salad. Try the Radicchio Arugula Date Salad. Want something a bit less complicated? Try this simple Radicchio Arugula Salad.
5. Warm Beet Salad
Photo © Molly Watson
I just love the whole concept of this salad: serving beets on their own greens. If you can't find beets sold with their greens still attached, Swiss chard, rainbow chard, kale, or collard greens can be used instead of the beet greens. The bit of lemon really compliments the earthiness of this Warm Beet Salad. Is it fairly nice out where you are? You might want to try a Grilled Beet Salad with Arugula instead - it's best while the beets are still warm, but is pretty darn good if they've cooled down to room temperature too.
