Sicilian Citrus Salad

This beautiful and healthy stacked Sicilian Citrus Salad is a brilliant pop of color and flavor for your winter table!

There are lots of citrus salads floating around the blogosphere, and for good reason. They’re incredibly easy to make, they’re stunning to look at, and they’re so different from all the other salads we make, especially in mid winter.  I’ve made several on the blog, including my Citrus Salad with Pistachio and Pomegranate, and my Blood Orange and Jicama Salad, just to name a few,   but every time I see another variation I fall in love all over again.

It was such fun to stack all the different citrus fruits for this salad ~ this arrangement makes the most of their vibrant colors.

Plan on at least one piece of citrus fruit for each serving.  I chose a pink and a white grapefruit, a navel orange, a Cara Cara orange, and a blood orange for a good mix of sizes and colors.  There are subtle color differences even between oranges and tangerines, so if you can’t find fancy varieties, just be sure to grab several different kinds of citrus.

You’ll need a bed of greens, your choice, for your citrus stacks to rest on.  I used micro kale because I had it in the fridge and I love it, but any lettuce will do.

You can peel and slice your citrus any way you want, but I find it easiest to slice them into quarter inch slices with their peel on, and then go around each slice with a small sharp serrated knife to remove the peel.  Pop out any seeds before you start stacking.

Add some goat or feta cheese, some crushed pistachios (roasted and salted), thinly sliced red onion and a sprinkling of fresh mint leaves.  I find this Sicilian citrus salad hardly needs any dressing at all, maybe a drizzle of really good olive oil, some salt and fresh black pepper.  The juice of the fruit provides the acidity.  Go for a simple vinaigrette if you want a more pronounced flavor.

Isn’t this so pretty?  There are lots of ways to arrange these Mediterranean inspired citrus salads.  Sometimes the slices are spread out on a platter, sometimes the fruit is sectioned and mixed with greens.  Any way you do it they are a really nice change from a green salad.