Citrus Fennel Salad with Champagne-Lemon Vinaigrette

This bright and flavorful Citrus Fennel Salad makes a regular appearance on our fall and winter menu plan. Perfect for a weeknight dinner or your next holiday party! 

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This Citrus Fennel Salad has been my go-to side salad for dinners for the past couple of winters and it’s about time I shared it with you! It’s made an appearance in numerous Menu Plan Mondays and has been adapted various times based on what else is in my fridge that I want to use up or am just in the mood to add.

Overall, the base of it stays the same with three to four main ingredients and a bright, acidic dressing to match. The base of the salad consists of arugula, thinly sliced crisp fennel, and sweet and juicy Cara Cara oranges. Sometimes, as seen in the pictures here, I add sliced avocado. Other times this salad may have beets, pomegranate seeds, or toasted almonds.

If I’m having this salad for lunch, or dinner isn’t protein-heavy, I will likely top the salad with some crumbled goat cheese. That’s part of the fun of this citrus fennel salad – you can adapt it to what suits you, your palate, and the ingredients you have on hand.

{Pssst…think this salad looks familiar? You may remember my summer version – this Strawberry Arugula Salad with Fennel, Toasted Almonds, and Strawberry Champagne Vinaigrette!}

A Different Kind of Orange

In case you’re not familiar with Cara Cara oranges, they are a type of naval orange with a pinkish-orange flesh. They’re a little sweeter and less acidic than regular naval oranges, but the real reason I choose them over classic oranges is for their beauty. I mean how pretty is this salad?! It’s exactly what you need to brighten up the dark days of winter coming our way.

Starting around December and throughout the winter through early spring I find bags of Cara Cara oranges at Trader Joe’s, where I also buy my fennel bulbs (they come two to a box), a bag of arugula, and a bag of avocados. I also get my crumbled goat cheese there if that’s something you want to add. It really is a one-stop shop for this recipe!

Growing to Love Fennel

I wasn’t always a fan of fennel due to its flavor, which is similar to licorice and anise, but as I have gotten older and my tastes have changed, I have become a fan. Fennel bulb has a crisp and crunchy texture that makes it perfect for adding raw to salads but also holds up well when roasting in the oven.

The latter is another way I enjoy fennel as roasting brings out the sweetness of the vegetable as it caramelizes. You can try fennel in its roasted form in my Roasted Chicken with Fennel, Carrots, and Dried Plums.

When added to salads, I like to slice the fennel really thin, which is best achieved using a mandoline. If you’ve never cooked with fennel before, here’s a great tutorial from The Kitchn for how to cut fennel.

To prepare the oranges for the salad, I just peel them and slice them crosswise into rounds. Sometimes I break the rounds into segments, but if you’re serving this on a platter, I suggest keeping them intact for vanity reasons! (And by the way, if you can’t find Cara Cara oranges, use traditional naval oranges instead.)

Make the Dressing Your Own

Just as the ingredients of the salad can be tweaked to your liking, so too can the dressing. My go-to vinaigrette for this salad includes Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

If red wine vinegar is what you have on hand, go for it – I’ve made it that way and it works just as well. If you prefer honey over maple syrup, make the swap. No lemon juice? Squeeze one of those oranges and use orange juice instead. You see, it’s all really malleable. And easy to make. Just see for yourself!

One last word about this Citrus Fennel Salad before we get to the actual recipe – just as the ingredients can be changed up, so can the quantities. I only give specific measurements here to help you form the basic recipe, but feel free to tweak them as you see fit. The truth is I never measure out the ingredients of the actual salad – I just eyeball it based on how many people I’m serving. The salad dressing I am more precise with, but I often have leftover since I find a little goes a long way.

Now let’s eat!

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