Multicolored Salad With Sweet Oranges

This is a very easy salad to make, especially if you buy the pre-shredded cabbage, but it has a lovely complexity of flavors on the tongue and pairs beautifully with any main dish. You even make the dressing right in the bowl, so what could be bad?

Start with three cups of red (purple) cabbage and three cups of white cabbage, shredded,

and 2 cups of Romaine lettuce chopped. Put in a glass bowl so you can see the pretty colors. I used about half a bag of each shredded cabbage, or 3 lightly packed cups per bag.

Take an orange and cut into thin slices. Cut off the outer peel and white (bitter) pith.

Save all the juices of the orange, you will pour it into the bowl with the salad as part of the dressing and the last bit (the chunky end of the orange) squeeze over the salad fixings. Then chunk the thinly sliced orange. Add to the bowl.

Next, right into the bowl, drizzle the cider vinegar, the olive oil and the honey. Toss all together and sprinkle with 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of salt to taste. Toss again.

Now here is the trick to this salad. If you put the dressing on the veggies in advance, it starts to pickle the ingredients and they will start to wilt down and compact somewhat. Also, the purple cabbage will start to stain the white a pinkish color. This is the point that you realize you have basically a choice between two different salads. A fresh fluffier version, in which you only dress the salad five minutes before serving, or a more compacted slightly pickled salad where you dress the salad about 10-15 minutes before serving. This way the color doesn’t run yet but you still get the pickling effect.

Each one is light, refreshing and delicious but they really are different. The choice is yours!

One more note. You can definitely add slices of onion to this salad for added flavor but I deliberately chose not to since I wanted a lighter feeling and taste to it.

Multicolored Salad With Sweet Oranges

3 cups (lightly packed) red cabbage
2 cups lightly packed Romaine lettuce
3 cups (lightly packed) white cabbage
1 oranges, (I grate off the orange peel to use in other things) and remove rest of peel including white pith (bitter indeed)
1-2 tablespoons orange juice (you will have that from the cutting of the orange and the ends)
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 or 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 – 1 teaspoon salt, to taste

Directions:

Carefully clean and finely shred (or save the work and buy pre-shredded) the red and white cabbage, and place into a glass bowl.

Clean the lettuce and dry and shred. Add to the bowl.

Slice orange in half and then thinly slice and cut off peel. Then chunk the pieces and add to the bowl. Make sure to catch all the juices and add to the bowl. Save the ends to squeeze into the bowl over the ingredients.

Now is the time to choose either the fluffier salad or the more pickled version, by deciding if you add the dressing ingredients (the orange juice won’t affect it as much as the vinegar and salt) now or wait till closer to the meal. Add the orange juice, vinegar, honey, olive oil and salt. Toss well to coat all the salad fixings.

Either let sit awhile to pickle or serve immediately. Fresh, easy, delicious. Enjoy!