A Doubly Fennel Salad Recipe

As someone who eats a lot of salads I have to say that many are unsatisfying. They are either not flavorful enough or not filling enough or aren't memorable enough to be worth my while. So that's why I'm starting a new type of recipe called a Salad Hero. A Salad Hero is a salad that is actually worthy of being a meal. It can change minds about what can be for dinner. It can often subvert the very nature of what it means to be a salad.

So I'm starting with the first Salad Hero by using an ingredient a lot of people scoff at: a fennel and its fronds. Yes there's more to a fennel than just its bulb. Instead of throwing half of it away we are using the fronds (that Oprah recently thought was dill. Oops.) to take it that extra mile. It's a win-win, that isn't too overpowering but gives the salad a bit of an extra something. Some might even call it a salad hero.

 

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
1 fennel
3 tablespoon olive oil, divided
Salt to taste
2 oranges, diced
6 cups spinach
Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut the fronds off the fennel and set aside. Dice the bulb into small, bite size pieces. Toss the fennel pieces with one tablespoon of olive oil and salt and then place on a sheet tray and put in the oven. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fennel is soft enough to eat but still has a slight bite. Remove from the oven to fully cool.

Remove the fronds from the stalk - you should only keep the smaller whispy parts. Chop and add into a bowl (if the fennel is particularly leafy you don't have to use all of it if you dont want) Roughly chop the spinach (you don't want to cut it too small but you want to make the pieces a bit more manageable) and then add in the orange. Toss with the lemon juice and olive oil. Add additional salt to taste.