Christmas Salad Recipe (2024)

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Christmas Salad with a ham, our Christmas co*cktail and ourWreath Pavlova and you have the Christmas menu of champions! Just like ourThanksgivingsalad recipe we are especially festive at this time of year!

Salad recipes like the Crispy Chicken BLT Salad and Watermelon Cucumber Salad are fun because we can make them colourful and bright with tasty ingredients!

A Good Christmas Salad

I feel like the perfect song to express the joys of this salad go something like:

'Christmas Salad, Christmas Salad, Christmas all the way!
Oh what fun it is to have a plate full of salad on Christmas day!
(yep, you guessed it, I have Jingle Bells on my brain!!!)

Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? I have been seeing the Christmas lights of our suburb and it is so pretty and really gets you in the festive mood. It is a good time of year. HOT in Sunny Queensland, but you get used to it after a few years/life here, haha!!

Remember recently when we did theThanksgiving Saladand if you forgot, this will jog your memory,here is it!

Well, I wanted to bring something similar to our Christmas Tables as we had on our Thanksgiving Tables and this Christmas Salad recipe is it!!

Christmas salads with a sweet mango drizzle

I really considered what Christmas flavours are.....and then I went about putting ALL OF THEM into this dish, WHOOP!

The best thing is there is a bit of booze in there! I will let you in on a little secret....us Aussies LOVE our booze. It is like our national drink of choice (anything alcoholic!). If you want to drink whilst you make this dish, hey, who am I to judge....I did put a little booze in me at the same time as in the salad, so go for it! It will help bring on the Christmas Cheer!

You may even want to whip up aco*cktailfor the occasion and for that I recommend ourChristmas co*cktail(it too uses the beautiful sweet moscato).

About the recipe:

This is the PERFECT salad for your Christmas table!!
The recipe does have meat (speck in it)
We use cinnamon, rosemary, chilli flakes, garlic and salt and pepper to roast our pumpkin so it tastes amazing!!
There is only 2 ingredients for the Mango Moscato Drizzle

To answer your questions:

The Christmas Salad can be served cold, warm or hot!
I do not recommend freezing the salad (as the peas and edamame were already frozen)
The recipe involves using the stove, the oven and the microwave
This is a REASONABLY STRAIGHTFORWARD dish to pull together

Let’s whip up this dish together…here is how to make ourChristmas Saladwith step by step photos:

How to make a Christmas Salad

Our cinnamon roasted pumpkin is a key ingredient in this dish and it tastes BLOODY GOOD!! There are lots of flavours in the seasoning as that is what Christmas is all about! If you use a bowl of some sort, like you can see here in my pics, it will be easier to coat all of your pumpkin pieces by using a pastry brush.

If you haven't heard of speck before, you will be able to get it in the meat section of the supermarket. It has a higher fat content than bacon and is smoked as part of the final step when it is cured. This tastes AMAZING when we cook it with a little moscato.

For our drizzle, I used frozen mango pieces, but fresh is good too, so if you have mangoes in season, go for it!! (They will require a little bit less cook time as they are not frozen to begin with).

Our Mango Moscato drizzle is the key that draws everything together for our salad!

Ingredients for Christmas Salad

The peas and edamame are super simple as both are frozen, cooked, then added to the mix. I have a little secret too for the quinoa........I DID IT IN THE MICROWAVE yup, uh-huh, easy as and I used vegetable stock so it's going to pack a punch in your mouth!

Dressing for Christmas Salad

I find tossing salads a relaxing and heartwarming task, which always makes me sigh and breath a little deeper, thinking about the good stuff I am putting into my body. I am sure you will too (from your Therapist by the way, haha! see my recent posts if this goes over your head and you want to stay in the loop!!).

If you have left over drizzle, pop it on the table and it can be used on meats/vegetables! If you don't have Moscato, you can use a Dry White, like a Sauvignon Blanc or Semillon Sauvignon Blanc(the New Zealand ones are pretty close to perfect!)

📖 Recipe

Christmas Salad

Christmas Salad is on Sweet Caramel Sunday!With simple ingredients and step by step instructions, you will be able to make this dish for Christmas!

Ingredients

Christmas Salad

500 grams butternut pumpkin
2 cups dried quinoa
4 cups water (quinoa)
4 vegetable stock cubes (quinoa)
10 cups water (peas)
5 vegetable stock cubes
500 grams frozen peas
200 grams frozen edamame
250 grams speck
⅓ cup dry white wine (speck)
⅓ cup olive oil
½ tablespoon cinnamon (ground)
½ tablespoon rosemary leaves (dried)
½ tablespoon chilli flakes
1 teaspoon himalayan rock salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Mango Moscato Drizzle

1 ½ cups frozen mango pieces
⅓ cup moscato wine

Instructions

Christmas Salad

Add water for the quinoa, stock cubes for the quinoa and dried quinoa to microwave safe container and cook for 12 minutes on high
Preheat your oven to180 degrees F82.2 degrees C. Line a baking tray with paper. Peel and dice your pumpkin into small cubes. Discard any seeds.
In a small bowl add olive oil, cinnamon, rosemary, salt and pepper, stir to combine. Use a pastry brush to coat all pumpkin pieces liberally in the seasoning mix. Place in oven for 20-30 minutes or until a skewer insert goes into a pumpkin piece and out the other side with no resistance.
Add water for the peas and stock cubes for the peas to a large saucepan. Bring to the boil. Add frozen peas and replace lid of saucepan. When water boils again, turn off heat, drain and discard water.
Use a microwave safe bowl to cook the edamame for 3 minutes
Chop the speck into small pieces. Add a splash of olive oil to a medium frypan, add the speck and the moscato and fry off until the wine is absorbed.
Combine quinoa, cinnamon roasted pumpkin pieces, peas, speck and edamame to a large salad bowl
Dress with Mango Moscato Drizzle and stir to combine

Mango Moscato Drizzle

Combine frozen mango and moscato in a medium sized saucepan. Add white and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and when cool, use a hand held mixer to blend to a smooth consistency.

Notes

You can use a dry white wine for cooking the speck and in the drizzle in place of the moscato if you prefer a less sweet wine.
You will hardly notice the chilli on the pumpkin, so don't stress that it is going to be 'spicy'.
The water for the peas will get hotter a lot faster if you use a lid on your saucepan.
I don't cook the peas and edamame together for 2 reasons: 1) I want different textures to them 2) Food styling of the salad
This is a HUGE salad!! If you want to make a smaller version, reduce the quinoa to either ½ cup (makes 1 cup cooked) or 1 cup (makes 2 cups cooked). Then you could do ½ the peas also. However, I would leave the rest of the ingredients the same, unless you want a bit less pumpkin too.

Nutrition

Course Dinner, Lunch, special occasion

Cuisine Australian, International

Keyword christmas, Christmas Recipes, Christmas Salad

Did you make this recipe? Share on Instagram!It makes my day when you make my recipes! Tag @sweetcaramelsunday

Please note this recipe was published on 5th December 2018 and updated on 30th November 2019.

Many Days of Christmas recipes...

Christmas Wreath Pavlova
Steamed Broccolini(greens to balance out our carbs)
Thanksgiving Salad
Christmas co*cktail(present opening drinks, YES!!!)

As always sing out if you have questions about the recipes or techniques, I've got you sorted and you have got this salad sorted!

Adrianne xx