These Christmas Salads Are The Perfect Way To Start Your Holiday Meals (2024)

Beet lovers, rejoice! Creamy goat cheese, roasted beets, avocado, and arugula make this the ideal salad. Simply wrap your beets in foil and bake them like a baked potato. The resulting beets will be tender, earthy, and slightly sweet in a way that no store-bought beet can.

Get the Roasted Beet Goat Cheese Salad recipe.

When you're looking for a side dish that tastes extremely fresh even in the depth of winter, look no further than fennel salad. It’s crunchy, slightly sweet, and perfectly light and refreshing, especially if you serve it alongside heavier cold weather comfort foods.

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Brussels sprouts can be, shall we say, divisive, so when we want to incorporate this veggie into our holiday meals, we turn to this fresh, seasonal salad. With toasted almonds, shaved Parmesan, and pomegranate seeds, this is the holiday side that will convert even the biggest haters.

Get the Brussels Sprout Salad recipe.

When it comes to dinner-worthy salads, this one takes the cake. The mandarin oranges give it a burst of freshness while the Parmesan gives it a bite of sharpness and nuttiness. Its homemade poppy seed vinaigrette (super-simple!) is unbelievably tasty—you'll want to put it on everything.

Get the Mandarin Orange Salad recipe.

We don’t believe in boring salads at Delish, and crunchy apples and tart cranberries bring a lot of life to this one. The slightly sweet and lemony dressing is easy to make, so do yourself a favor and make extra to pour over everything.

Get the Cranberry Apple Quinoa Salad recipe.

This panzanella salad is packed with in-season veggies, crisp and crunchy sourdough croutons, and coated in a tangy grapefruit vinaigrette, making it the perfect way to brighten a bleak winter day. It’s time to toss the tomatoes and cucumbers (for now) and fall in love with beets and squash instead.

Get the Winter Rainbow Panzanella Salad recipe.

This simple yet satisfying wintery salad packs a flavorful punch with slightly smoky seared pears, creamy blue cheese, and ultra-crunchy candied pumpkin seeds. Tied together by a sweet-sour honey vinaigrette, it’s the perfect holiday side (or add some protein to make it a main!).

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Whether a creamy fruit salad horrifies you or makes you want to dig in immediately, Ambrosia salad's a classic for a reason. It's been around since the 1800s, when citrus fruit first became available more prevalently in the U.S. The more you know!

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A quick pan-fry makes creamy goat cheese a fun, super-crunchy salad topper. It’s a creative take on croutons that makes a simple salad so much more exciting. These are also great on their own and would be delicious on a cheese board with a little drizzle of honey.

Get the Fried Goat Cheese Salad recipe.

We created this kale salad as an homage to crunch. Every ingredient has been chosen to amplify texture while also adding bold flavors. We included green apple, roasted peanuts, and cabbage, but go ahead and add any ingredient with crunch that you like!

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For this salad, we paired crisp licorice-y fennel with juicy grapefruit, briny Kalamata olives, creamy goat cheese, and some rich toasted pine nuts. Most things are highly adjustable, here so swap in your faves!

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At Lolita’s, one of Poughkeepsie, New York’s best restaurants, an ultra-creamy kale salad is bound with what is essentially a Caesar dressing amplified by extra lemon juice, then grounded and offset by toasted bread crumbs, pistachios, and Pecorino. It's the perfect salad to enjoy any time this winter.

Get the Lolita's Kale Salad recipe.

How does a bowl of warm, savory grains and tender, dressed greens with creamy crumbly feta on top sound to you? With much of the same toppings as our classic Greek salad but with an element of hearty carbs added, this is as much a salad as it is a rice bowl.

Get the Tomato Fried Rice Salad recipe.

The secret to getting picky eaters to get a bite of broccoli? Bacon! Serve this up at your next holiday potluck but beware! It'll go FAST.

Get the Broccoli Bacon Salad recipe.

This festive-looking salad couldn't be more simple to make. Toss shredded (rotisserie) chicken with a good amount of parsley (this is inspired by our favorite condiment, chimichurri, after all), garlic, olive oil, and vinegar and serve with toasted bread or in lettuce wraps.

Get the Chimichurri Chicken Salad recipe.

We recommend sticking with the bright lemony dressing and finishing this salad with some goat cheese to add creamy tanginess, but otherwise, truly anything goes. Swap in different beans, any of your favorite roasted seasonal veggies, or even different greens.

Get the Anything Goes Grain Salad recipe.

This salad is the perfect way to lighten up any holiday meal. It's packed with all the things we like to pair with sweet potato—feta, dried cranberries, and red onions—and it's great served hot or cold. We can't get enough!

Get the Sweet Potato Salad recipe.

The roasted cauliflower here is perfectly spiced with just a little bit of heat, and the creamy avocado dressing helps balance everything out. This salad good enough to be a main dish, but is easy enough to make a great, simple side for holiday meals too.

Get the Roasted Cauliflower Salad recipe.

With pecans, Parm, green apples, and leafy arugula, this salad really feels like a full meal—AKA a make-ahead dream. It's got ALL the elements you need: sweet, salty, soft, crunchy, fatty, fresh, but feel free to make it your own with your preferred mix-ins too.

Get the Farro Salad recipe.

Legend has it this ramen salad was invented in the 1960s at Madam Wu's in Los Angeles because Cary Grant requested it. Sunset magazine published a recipe in 1970, and Wolfgang Puck created his own version of it in the '80s. TMYK!

Get the Crunchy Mandarin Orange-Chicken Salad recipe.