Orange and Fennel Salad

This orange and fennel salad is bright, refreshing, and bursting with flavor. Sweet, juicy oranges are paired with crisp, flavor-packed fennel. It’s the perfect fall salad for your next gathering or holiday meal.

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Raise your hand if you love black licorice! If I had known that there was a vegetable that tasted like licorice, I would have eaten it many years before I first tried it. Thinly sliced fennel, layered throughout the salad and combined with the citrus, arugula, and sweet onion, lends to a beautiful mixture of sweet and savory flavors. 

I love serving this salad alongside maple syrup roasted carrots, stuffed acorn squash, and vegan sweet potato casserole. For dessert, vegan apple pie is where it’s at!

Nutrition For Mental Health

As a nutritionist, I like fennel! (As a human who loves licorice, I’m obsessed!) One cup of sliced fennel is particularly rich in vitamin K and is a good source of vitamin C. A small, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial found that fennel may reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety in postmenopausal women who have pre-existing mood conditions.

Ingredients + Substitutions

Simple, seasonal ingredients are all you need to make this fennel bulb salad with citrus.

• Fennel: Obviously this is one of the stars of the show (salad). If you really wanted to skip it, you could, but then it really wouldn’t be a fennel orange salad, would it? If you’re not a fan of fennel but want a fall-feeling citrus salad, make this arugula orange salad instead. 
• Citrus: Now, when it comes to the oranges you use in this fennel salad recipe, you can play around with it. For color, I love using a combination of blood orange, Cara Cara, and navel oranges. The salad calls for three oranges, so you could use one of each, or you can definitely just use three of the same type of orange to make things even simpler.
• Greens: I love using arugula in salads because it is crisp and a bit peppery, so it adds a good flavor all on its own. However, when it comes to greens, I would just use whatever you have on hand or can easily find at the grocery store.

A full list of ingredients with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.

How To Make Fennel and Orange Salad

This citrus fennel salad is so easy to make! Layer everything together and drizzle the dressing on top.

1. Add all of the dressing ingredients into a blender cup and blend until smooth. (About 15-20 seconds.)

2. Spread out the arugula on a large serving dish. Layer on sliced oranges, fennel, onion, and avocado slices. Sprinkle on pistachios and green fennel sprigs. Drizzle with lemon shallot dressing, toss, and enjoy.

Storage Tips

If you have leftovers of this fennel and citrus salad, I always recommend storing the dressing separately from the salad. With this salad, if you are meal prepping, I recommend keeping the dressing separate from the greens as well as keeping the citrus slices separate until serving so they don’t get your greens soggy. 

If you tried this Orange and Fennel Recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!

Recipe

Reference
Ghazanfarpour, M., Mohammadzadeh, F., Shokrollahi, P., Khadivzadeh, T., Najaf Najafi, M., Hajirezaee, H., & Afiat, M. (2018). Effect of Foeniculum vulgare (fennel) on symptoms of depression and anxiety in postmenopausal women: a double-blind randomised controlled trial. Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology : the journal of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 38(1), 121–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443615.2017.1342229