Entertaining

Festive Holiday Salad

Festive Holiday Salad on MarlaMeridith.com © MarlaMeridith.com #Thanksgiving #Christmas #Fall #Winter

Here we are again…more holiday fun! While everyone else is bringing you candy, cookies and treats I have something to lighten up the holidays a little bit . Here is a simple salad that you can serve for brunch, lunch or dinner. This is a great way to use up all of those leftovers from your holiday feast. A main course salad with loads of hearty nibbles inside…turkey, nuts and cheese give great energy sustain.

So you can make it to dessert and still have room…

Festive Holiday Salad on MarlaMeridith.com © MarlaMeridith.com #Thanksgiving #Christmas #Fall #Winter

This is a versatile salad, so toss in any protein, nuts, fresh or dried fruit you have on hand. Pomegranate seeds are always a favorite here. Raisins, apricots, dried cranberries, blueberries, sliced strawberries. Any of those would add a nice touch of sweet too.

Serve with a simple twist of lemon, fruity olive oil and with a dash of salt and pepper. I told you. Keep it simple.

Festive Holiday Salad on MarlaMeridith.com © MarlaMeridith.com #Thanksgiving #Christmas #Fall #Winter

I usually make my own salad dressing. When in a pinch we enjoy this with fun flavors from Marzetti Simply Dressed. I am happy to share them with you here. There are loads of flavors to suit your fancy and the great thing is they are made with all natural ingredients. For this salad the Pomegranate flavor is my favorite. There are so many to choose from though.

Festive Holiday Salad Marla Meridith Photography

When it comes to cheese I like a tangy, creamy goat cheese. Crumbled blue cheese, gorgonzola and feta are delicious as well. If you only have firmer cheese in the house then toss some of that in. I have never said no to a sharp cheddar, Gruyére or shaved parmesan.

Salad with goat cheese, turkey, pomegranate seeds and pecans. Marzetti wooden salad bowl and tongs set.

 

I always love cheese and fruit paired together. See…

Cheese Platter at the Beverly Wilshire on MarlaMeridith.com © MarlaMeridith.com

What are your favorite salad ingredients? Do you have a favorite salad dressing?

Festive Holiday Salad on MarlaMeridith.com © MarlaMeridith.com #Thanksgiving #Christmas #Fall #Winter.

Have you been letting loose for the holidays with your eating or can you still wear those skinny jeans? Speaking of healthy holiday eating please check out my video segment on that topic I just did for Abe’s Market.

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:45]

Graphic with pink fleur de lis for MarlaMeridith.com

Simply Dressed Marzetti wooden salad serving bowl

Giveaway Details

To keep you making all of those healthy salads Marzetti Simply Dressed is providing 2 lucky readers with an awesome gift including:

  • Wooden salad bowl & salad tongs (the ones you see in my photos)
  • Five free product coupons

This giveaway will be open until Saturday, December 24th, midnight PST. The winner will be chosen at Random.org and will be notified via email, so please make sure your email address is correct. You will have 3 days to respond to me, or a new winner will be chosen. Open to residents of the USA.

How to Enter

This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Lyn #122 and Jacqui #83. Stay tuned for more fun giveaways soon.

Leave some comments. Tell me about what ingredients you like to put in your salad. What is your favorite kind of salad dressing?

To earn extra entries, leave a separate comment for each of the steps listed below. You can leave one comment (entry) or many comments (entries) The choice is yours. If you don’t leave separate comments for each step, the number generator will not count them as separate entries.

  1. Vote for my Thai Spiced French Fries to become the new Alexia Foods flavor. You can vote one time per day until March 30th 2012. Leave a comment each time you vote.
  2. Pinterest follow me there & pin this post
  3. Follow @MarlaMeridith on Twitter
  4. Tweet this giveaway, being sure to include my Twitter handle (@MarlaMeridith). Here’s a sample tweet you could use or make up your own: I want to win the Marzetti Simply Dressed Salad #giveaway on MarlaMeridith.com @MarlaMeridith http://bit.ly/v8K1yB #holiday #Christmas
  5. Head over to the Marzetti Simply Dressed website and tell me which flavor you would like to try.
  6. Tell me which MarlaMeridith.com Recipe you have tried or would like to.
  7. Sign up for my Email or RSS feeds
  8. Stumble this post & follow @familyfresh on StumbleUpon
  9. Add a link to this post (or any of my posts) on your blog.
  10. Follow @MarlaMeridith on Instagram
  11. Add the MarlaMeridith.com badge into your sidebar or somewhere on your blog
  12. Share this giveaway in any other creative way you can think up & let me know.

*You can stay in touch with MarlaMeridith.com and Marzetti on Facebook too!

Salad Recipe Links

MarlaMeridith.com disclosure: I am hosting this giveaway so you can experience Marzetti Simply Dressed  for yourself. The opinions on this blog are entirely my own. I was sent samples of their products to review and was compensated for my time. All photography and styling are by Marla Meridith and are copyrighted material.

 

~ Marla Meridith

Join the Conversation

174 thoughts on “Festive Holiday Salad

  1. I am all about the pomegranate in a salad. I also love tomatoes and cucumbers and perhaps some tuna or chicken.
    As for the Salad dressing a bit of ranch would be great.

  2. I love to garden, and my favorite salads aren’t the ones where I keep it simple. I love to mix some of everything I have growing all together. Yum!

  3. I love spinach and romaine lettuce with cheddar, mushrooms and cucumbers. Add dill with oil oil and splash of vinigear .

  4. I like Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing. I usually add 2% milk shredded cheese, real bacon pieces, and whole wheat croutons to my salad.

  5. What a beautiful salad. It’s perfect to serve along the holiday feast and I always need my veggies fix! 🙂 I usually make my own dressing and my favorite is Meyer Lemon with Herbs.

    1. Amy, that sounds like a great dressing! In the spring I need to get my hands on some Meyer Lemons. Veggies are always the bulk of my meals…even at holiday time.

  6. I’ve tried your bacon and cheese stuffed mushrooms recipe multiple times. My husband just adores mushrooms and hey you can’t go wrong w/ bacon.

  7. I like to put mixed baby greens, goat cheese, walnuts, dried cranberries, and honey crisp apple with a dressing of pumpkin, maple syrup, walnut oil, apple cider, seeded Dijon, and cider vinegar.

  8. I love including soft cheese like feta or goat cheese in my salad, so good! My current favorite salad dressing is one I make with walnut oil…I never knew an oil could be so flavorful!! 🙂

    1. Sara, I loooooove walnut oil too. You are right, a great way to dress a salad. Some other nut oils that are also awesome: Pecan & Hazelnut.
      Pumpkin seed oil is fun too, though not a nut. The color is pretty 🙂

  9. The Marzetti SImply Dressed flavor I would like to try most is the Greek Feta Dressing… I am obsessed with Feta cheese!

  10. My husband would love the blue cheese dressing. I mostly like a mix of olive oil and wine vinegar. I like mix of baby greens or herb greens.

  11. Salad – give me salad and save us all from ourselves and all these cookies and cakes!!! Love the Kath Kidston plates ; ) when are you giving them to me?!!!!

    1. Yay! Miss Lucy is a lover of Kath Kidston designs as well. How did you know I was gonna send all of my Brit finds your way?!
      Thank goodness for salad among a sea of desserts 😉

  12. I love to add fresh fruit (pom seeds are one of my favorites, but I also love oranges, apples, pears, grapefruit, avocado), nuts and seeds, and dried fruit.

  13. I love salads, especially when there is a great variety in ingredients and textures. I generally enjoy mesclun or bitter greens with either goat or blue cheese (maybe feta or another cheese), chopped nuts, maybe some dried fruit, and a simple vinaigrette. I also enjoy salads made with grains like couscous and quinoa.

  14. I didn’t know Marzetti had this dressing until I saw this post-thank you! I usually buy a balsamic dressing at Trader Joe’s. I’ll have to look for this even I don’t win.

  15. I usually make my own salad dressing. My favorite thing to put in salad is spinach, carrots, cucumbers, some leftover cheese and maybe some nuts for crunch.

  16. Lovely salad! I adore dried or fresh figs in salad. We make lots of main dish salads with whatever we have on hand (chickpeas are a personal fave) and make simple dressings with citrus and olive oil.

  17. I love bleu cheese dressing. Yum. Two nights per month we do a salad night where we just have a gianormous salad for dinner with all the toppings we can think of. This is a leap for my husband who was brought up with meat and potatoes, thinking corn was a vegetable and anything green is toxic. Thank you for the giveaway.

  18. It’s me again 🙂 I’m with ya on healthy holiday eating. My husband brings home desserts from patients almost daily during the holidays. We appreciate it, but honestly I grosses me out. I’d much prefer this salad. I included it in today’s post of my favorite holiday recipes.

  19. I like to put watermelon, feta, and candied pecans in my salad. I top it with a homemade orange balsamic vinaigrette.

  20. I love a salad with mixed baby greens, crumbled gorgonzola, dried cherries, walnuts and very thinly sliced red onion – dressed very simply with oil & vinegar and salt & pepper

  21. This salad looks festive and fabulous.
    Question? What is that beautiful bread in another picture shown with wedges of Blue Cheese? What brand or what recipe, PLEASE!

    1. Hi Beverly. That bread is from the Blvd restaurant at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire. You will need to contact them to find out more about it. Was very tasty!