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.
Sicilian Citrus Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups Your choice of micro greens or lettuce mix for the base of the salad, I used micro kale
- 1 pink grapefruit
- 1 white grapefruit
- 1 navel orange
- 1 cara cara orange
- 1 blood orange
- 1 tangerine
- 1/2 red onion, halved and very thinly sliced
garnish
- soft goat cheese crumbles
- crushed pistachio nuts
- fresh mint leaves
dressing
- olive oil
- lime juice
- a little salt and fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
- Begin by peeling the citrus fruit using a sharp serrated knife. Take off all the peel and the white pith and then slice the fruit into even slices. Remove any seeds.
- Lay down a bed of fresh greens on a platter. Scatter the onion slices across the lettuce. Arrange the citrus in multicolored stacks, making one stack per serving.
- Scatter the plate with the goat cheese and pistachio nuts. Arrange mint leaves around the plate, and then, just before serving, drizzle the salad with the olive oil and lime juice. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Nutrition
this is way too fancy for me to make for myself, but i’d love to dazzle some dinner guests with it! very lovely and very impressive, sue. 🙂
Hi Sue! This is my first visit–I landed here in that mysterious way we have in blogland of clicking and clicking and I can see that I have so much to catch up on in your posts! I recently made a three-citrus scrod dish which had my family begging for more (lemon, lime, grapefruit). It is the perfect fruit for our New England winters, full of vitamin C and a reminder of sunny days to come. Linda
I can’t wait to check that out Linda— I love scrod, and haven’t had it in ages. Thanks for visiting!
I made a lemon cake yesterday and marveled at how beautiful the lemons were – large and juicy. Wow, this is a gorgeous salad, Sue. I haven’t seen blood oranges in the local market. I’ll have to take a closer look.
The blood oranges are easy to miss because they basically look the same from the outside. I like it when the stores cut open a sample of their citrus so you can see what you’re getting.
I’m getting ready to post another citrus salad tomorrow! I just finished writing my post where I proclaimed my love for winter citrus salads and then saw some link backs here. Glad to see I’m not the only one with a love for winter citrus salads. So glad you enjoyed this one. Thanks for introducing me to all your visitors! 🙂
You’re welcome Nicole! I’m glad I found your blog, we can trade citrus salads all winter 🙂
Mouthwatering delicious salad! I love how they citrus looks stacked!
This is just the prettiest salad ever! It’s certainly a bit of sunshine on this dreary Carolina day, LOVE it!