Sicilian-Style Citrus Salad

Sicilian-Style Citrus Salad
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Total Time
30 minutes
Rating
5(870)
Notes
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Winter is the season when many kinds of citrus fruits suddenly appear. For this savory fruit salad, a mixture of navel, blood and Cara Cara oranges and a small grapefruit make a colorful display. It’s fine to use just one kind of orange, blood oranges being the classic example. Thinly sliced fennel, celery and red onion add a tasty bit of crunch. The salad is dressed assertively with oil and vinegar, and scattered with olives and flaky sea salt.

Featured in: Sun-Kissed Citrus Salad for the Dead of Winter

Learn: How to Make Salad

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Ingredients

Yield:6 servings
  • 3 to 4tablespoons olive oil
  • 2tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2navel oranges
  • 4blood oranges
  • 2Cara Cara oranges
  • 1small grapefruit
  • 1small red onion, very thinly sliced
  • 1small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced, enough to make 1 cup
  • 2 or 3tender inside celery stalks, thinly sliced at an angle
  • Handful of olives, black oil cured type or green Castelvetrano type, pitted
  • Winter salad leaves, such as radicchio or escarole, optional
  • Large pinch of flaky sea salt
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

186 calories; 9 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 28 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 20 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 654 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Make the vinaigrette: Whisk together olive oil and vinegar in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. It should be tart but not over-vinegary. Taste and add a little more olive oil if necessary.

  2. Step 2

    To peel the citrus fruit, use a small serrated knife. First, cut off a thin slice of peel from the top and bottom of the orange, so it can sit flat and securely on the cutting board. Use a sawing motion to take off the peel, cutting from top to bottom, following the curve of the fruit. Remove only the peel and white pith, not the flesh of the orange. It should now be perfectly spherical and naked. Peel remaining oranges and grapefruit in this fashion.

  3. Step 3

    Carefully slice peeled citrus crosswise. Arrange slices on a large serving platter in a random pattern, letting them overlap a bit here and there. Scatter onion, fennel and celery over top. Dot the surface with olives. Surround with salad leaves, if using.

  4. Step 4

    Whisk vinaigrette, and spoon evenly over the salad. Sprinkle lightly with flaky salt and serve.

Ratings

5 out of 5
870 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

Congrats form sun-kissed Greece, what an inspiration! Great salad to accompany Sunday roast , lamb or fried fish but , in my opinion, the raw onion shows up strong in this delicate salad. So, I sliced it very thinly and pickled it lightly with a pinch of brown sugar, pinch of salt and dash of white wine vinegar and left it for 20 minutes to soften and mellow down. I also added walnuts and it was great! Thanks again for reminding me a special salad, common to few even in mediterranean countries!

I like to use balsamic vinegar with this sort of salad. The vaguely sweet, syrupy quality of some balsamics is a nice complement to the tart citrus. If you don't use olives, garnish the salad with slivered almonds.

I love this salad! I soak the onions in ice water for 1O minutes and marinate them with the olives for 2 hours in the juice of 1 lemon and 2 to 3 Tb of olive oil.

I grew up in Sicily with this salad. Thank you for reminding me to make this more often. Absolutely delicious.

Although this version is undoubtedly good.....the simple and truly authentic version of this is: On a large salad plate or low-rimmed bowl: Place fresh baby arugula, covered thin slices of peeled sweet oranges, covered with some thin slices of sweet onion and several pitted Greek olives. To that add only fine olive oil and some salt (no vinegar). It's the combo of high quality ingredients that makes it so good and this salad is served all over Sicily....and is super easy.

Be sure to use some of the tender celery leaves from those inside stalks tossed into this salad. In fact, I think it looks like there are some celery leaves in the photo although not called out specifically in the ingredients list along with the celery. Some folks made good recommendations to "soften" the red onion flavor. My hubby is Siclian and we actually like it in "rough" form here when thinly sliced. This is a particularly great salad with escarole in the mix.

Took this to my sister’s house last night as a first course for her short ribs with mac and cheese. The salad was a great opportunity to use all those beautiful citrus fruits available this time of year. Because my sister doesn’t like olives, I substituted capers. Other than that I stuck to the recipe and got rave reviews all around.

Very simple and good even with only oranges on top of arugula. Red onion first put in ice water and refrig to lessen bite.

I added some (shelled) roasted and salted pistachios.

My mother was from Italy so I grew up with citrus salads usually comprised of oranges, slivered red onion and oil cured Italian black olives dressed in extra virgin olive oil, citrus vinegar, and lots of freshly ground black pepper. This recipe is a great upscale take on a humble Italian citrus salad.

We could not use grapefruit because of drug interactions . We added one golden kiwi and one regular green kiwi and the dish was excellent.

Trying this one today. Growing up in a Sicilian-American household, orange salad was lunch on many meatless Fridays, but a simpler version: orange sections and a cut-up hard-boiled egg, dressed with evoo, s&p. The "grownups" added red pepper flakes to theirs. When my grandmother made this salad, she dressed it only with olive oil, but she pressed a few of the orange sections with the tine of a fork to add some acidity to the dressing. I used to sop up every bit with a piece of bread!

So beautiful! Much needed respite from the supermarket tomatoes!

This is a fantastic, unusual salad when good citrus is available. Used equal amounts of cara-cara, blood and navel oranges plus a bit of sweet pink grapefruit. Went light on the red onion but wouldn't skip it; used a mix of balsamic and red wine vinegar with a squirt of agave. Layered the whole thing over greens. The oil cured olives were a bit overpowering (and I love olives). Might go with castelvetrano or fresh cured green olives next time.

I have made this twice in the last week and it's terrific exactly per the recipe, although I added some avocado the second time and let the onion sit in the dressing for about 15 minutes to take away some of the sharpness.

I used Cara Cara oranges and blood oranges, fennel and celery, I skipped the red onion because it’s always a little much for me, used Kalamata olives, the combination of flavors are delightful and refreshing. I don’t eat fennel very often, and this salad gives me a reason to. Really fantastic.

I use whatever citrus I gave or can find -- it's all good!

Smash some garlic into the olive oil dressing for a few minutes. (“It’s always better with garlic”) Also as another wrote, smash the ends of the oranges for their juice and add.

Since discovering this salad we have made it many times, with all sorts of citrus, including a little thinly sliced lemon, sweet lemons, and any orange type that is available. Grapefruit, of course. We always have Greek oil cured olives in the house, so they end up as the default olive. It is a gorgeous salad.

Great recipe, I wanted to serve mine more as a traditional bowl of green salad. I tossed chopped kale, and thinly sliced Napa cabbage with salt and olive oil, and a little lemon juice. I then tossed in most of the ingredients, topped with the citrus and olives and a few slices of everything for color. I also included celery leaves, which I thought added a green bitterness. I thought that Castelvetrano olives added a lot. Don’t skip those. This salad has tons of flavor without cheese.

Made with grilled pork. Needs something crunchy like sesame sticks or cashews. Double the dressing.

This was second- and third-helping delicious! Made for friends as salad course and we all loved it as is!

This was delicious. I didn’t have olives and my mom can’t have grapefruit due to interactions with her medicine. So used what I had on hand: navel oranges, fennel, goat cheese crumbles and sunflowers seeds for a little extra crunch. Look forward to making this in summer, but this can be enjoyed year round in my opinion. This was a nice change from the typical salad I make with greens as the base.

Prepared exactly as the recipe states except left out grapefruit for pharmaceutical interaction reasons. AMAZING. Used Castelvetrano olives, and soaked the onions in left leftover juices that were on my cutting board. Very easy and simple and incredible. Will make again and again.

I used balsamic vinegar as one person suggested. I didn't have fennel or celery, which I am sure would have been good, but this was still excellent. In addition, I used arugula rather than radicchio or escarole which worked fine. Will definitely make this again.

I marinated thinly sliced shallot in the dressing, thinking I would sub it for the red onion. On second thought, I used red onion, so I whizzed the dressing and shallots with a stick blender which emulsified beautifully. Tasted great. Also added walnut fragments on the third rendition. This recipe is in my "Best of the best" file.

This is an exquisite salad! It is so perfect for the dead of winter (which it still is here). My local Safeway store didn't have everything, so I needed to do without blood oranges and radicchio/escarole, plus my husband can't eat grapefruit so I will add it to my own leftovers. I used half the dressing on the salad and poured the rest into a carafe for the table. It is a great side for any Mediterranean dish. Ours was homemade pizza with sourdough crust. Yum.

As others have already mentioned, a perfect winter salad, when bright juicy sweet citrus is at its peak and cold grey skies seem interminable. Olives fennel and oranges, who knew!!

This is a visually appealing and tasty salad. It is worth the time to prepare the fruit and the salt flakes are a wonderful finish. I sprinkled the top with chopped celery leaves.

Made this last night to great review. Followed the recipe exactly. Part of the success was having awesome citrus available this time of year

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