January is citrus month and it’s typically so cold here in Canada, we tend to crave citrus and vitamin C all month long! This Orange and Fennel Salad with Sicilian Olives is so tasty, we could eat it every day of the week!
This salad combines thinly sliced fresh fennel, slightly spicy Sicilian olives, sharp red onion and juicy oranges. It’s delicious served along sauteed or grilled meat or veggie skewers keeping it a light and delicious meal.
We host International students and for the most part its a great experience. Learning about our students food and culture is one of our favourite things! How it’s prepared, what goes into it, what’s common and popular in their culture and more. All the things!
For example everyone in North America screams if you cook with olive oil at high temperatures. According to our Spanish student his generations of family have always cooked with Spanish olive oil at high temperatures and never any issues health wise or other. It’s so interesting and I get extremely excited when our students are motivated to cook and share recipes.
Use any variety of orange you like including Cara Cara, Blood oranges, Naval oranges, Minneloa oranges, even a firm Satsuma orange – all available at Sunterra Market here in Calgary.
Here’s some useful tips on how to make this salad:
Pro Tips:
- Use good extra virgin olive oil.
- A mandolin is a great tool for slicing the fennel thin.
- Use fresh basil, not dried.
- Substitute less spicy olives if you don’t like the heat.
- Not an olive fan but like the heat? Sprinkle on dried hot pepper flakes.
Looking for more salad recipe ideas:
Did you know the orange is a citrus fruit and is a hybrid of the pomelo and mandarin?!
Learn more interesting facts about oranges to wow the kids in your life, your friends and your family here: Fun Orange Facts for Kids.
Ingredients
- 3 oranges
- 2 mandarin oranges
- 1/4 fennel bulb halved lengthwise, cored, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
- 6 Sicilian olives
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- Fresh ground pepper
- Sea salt
- Fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- Using a sharp knife, cut and peel the oranges removing the white pith. Peel the mandarins.
- Thinly slice the oranges crosswise, removing any pits.
- Arrange the oranges on a platter and scatter the fennel, red onion and Sicilian olives on top.
- Drizzle with the olive oil, lemon and season with Maldon salt and freshly ground cracked black pepper.
- Garnish with the basil and serve.
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Ah ah, I’m in Rome and I’ve just made an orange and olive salad with my dad. It’s his specialty and I decided to take pics and I’m going to share it. Here it is a VERY popular winter side dish 🙂 . My dad has been doing it for ages, but he uses black olives and no fennel. And he cuts his oranges into cubes, so yours look way prettier 🙂 . Great job, you’re becoming Italian 🙂 .
Ha ha that’s so awesome! I simply love this salad and loved learning about it from Italians! There’s hope for me yet!
Wow Wanda, this looks so good! Beautiful and refreshing. I love the idea of fennel and orange together. Can not wait to try it.
Thanks!
Have a spectacular weekend.
Thanks! What I learned it how in season citrus is right now especially in Italy! And it’s delicious to!
This is beautiful and so elegant! A flavor combo I hadn’t considered before but it sounds wonderful!
It’s a flavour combination that really works and a salad I think will be a regular here!
Yum! I bet this combination is absolutely delightful! I had a salad at Cibo awhile ago that combined olives, beets and oranges — and I can’t get it out of my head. The flavour combination just works! I also love the artful presentation here Wanda. Beautiful recipe!
I was truly surprised at how well oranges (juicy tasty oranges) and olives went together. The Cibo salad sounds divine to – love beets!
This salad is so beautiful to look at and sounds so refreshing. I always love Fennel and orange together, but the olives sounds like a delicious addition.
Thank you! I think any kind of olive too would work with this salad. Depends on what you like!