Fennel Pomegranate Salad

With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, who has time for cooking, especially prep time? It’s nice to have some simple but delicious sides to serve with those sometimes intense main dishes.  This recipe is a family favorite; fresh fennel salad is easy and tasty.   Before I went vegan, I made the salad with simply fennel, pine nuts and parmesan. The pomegranate seeds were the alternative to the parmesan.  It makes the salad vibrantly beautiful and adds a nice tart sweetness.  This side acts as an art piece on the dinner table and gets guests attention. All this talk about fennel and pomegranate makes me crave our Christmas meal.

How to cut a pomegranate:

Cut pomegranate into quarters. In a medium size bowl, fill with water. Place one quarter of the pomegranate into water and slowly pull out seeds. Repeat with all quarters until all of the seeds are removed. Drain the water from the bowl.

Author: Amy Lyons O’Neil

Amy has worked for Fresh and Natural Foods since 2006 contributing to the variety of healthful foods we offer. She graduated with a degree in studio art from Bethel University in 2007, but in her senior year of college, found that her passion was with the art of food. She later used her photography and culinary skills to create a vegan food and recipe blog, Fragrant Vanilla Cake. She has also written 3 cookbooks. She specializes in vegan and vegetarian recipes. Local, fresh and organic food has always been her focus in whatever she creates.

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Servings: 3 | Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Ready in: 15 min

Ingredients

• Salad:
• 3 organic fennel bulbs, thinly sliced
• seeds of one pomegranate
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• Dressing:
• 1 Tbsp Napa Valley Naturals extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbsp organic lemon juice
• 2 tsp pure maple syrup
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large bowl combine fennel, pomegranate seeds, and pine nuts.  Whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, maple syrup, thyme and sea salt and pepper to taste and toss dressing with fennel mixture.  Serve!