Salads
Orzo Salad with Cranberry Walnut Crumble (and Other Christmas Salads)
Prep
15 minutes
Cook
5 minutes
Yield
4
This orzo with a cranberry walnut crumble is the perfect addition to your Christmas salad recipes. It's full of warming, seasonal flavors that you're going to love.
One of the best parts about the holiday season is all the delicious, warming flavors that can be brought into the kitchen. This orzo salad with cranberry walnut crumble is the perfect example of that and one of my favorite Christmas salads. It has the tangy sweetness from the cranberries, and the crunch of the walnut crumble, and it’s perfect for the holiday season. Bonus! If you read until the end, I have a compilation of some of my fav salads for the holiday season you’re going to love.
❤️ Why You’ll Love Christmas Salads
- Easy: I may love good food but I don’t believe you need to spend hours in the kitchen to make it, you’ll see from these recipes just how easy it is to pull together a delicious salad
- Healthy: Full of nutritious ingredients that are in season, these salad recipes are oh-so-good for you
- Versatile: With a salad, they’re incredibly easy to adjust and swap out ingredients to use what you have and make them your own
🍲 Ingredients
Cranberries – Cranberries have to be the most well-known berry during the holiday season. They’re not only in-season during the winter months, but they’re also versatile and delicious. You can bake with them, or cook with them. I like to use Cape Cod Select Cranberries. They sell both fresh and frozen, premium cranberries and they’re so good in recipes. They use no additives, they are sustainably farmed, and pack a punch of flavor for your cooking (or baking)
Fennel – Fennel is not a flavor for everyone, but I think it compliments this Christmas salad so well. It is part of the carrot family and adds a mild anise or licorice flavor. If you don’t like fennel, you can swap it for celery, but I promise, it combines so well with the walnut cranberry crumble in this delicious orzo salad recipe
👩🍳 How to Make Christmas Salads Like This One
For the cranberry walnut crumble
- Make the cranberry walnut crumble: Add butter to a skillet over medium heat. Once melted add frozen cranberries, cook stirring often until cranberries are cooked to a jammy-like texture. Turn to medium-low and add brown sugar. Stir fairly constantly until brown sugar is dissolved and a bit syrupy. Keep cooking for a minute or two until everything is combined. Add chopped walnuts and pinch chili flakes, and stir to combine. Cook for 1-2 more minutes until everything is a jammy-like texture. Pour onto a small parchment-lined plate and spread out a bit. Let set until cooled in the freezer, about 20 minutes.
For the dressing
- To a small bowl or in a jar, add the dressing ingredients and whisk together or shake it. Set aside.
For the salad
- Cook the pasta according to package directions, making sure to cook to al dente since the pasta will continue to soften once it’s mixed with the dressing. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse in cold water. Set aside.
- To assemble the salad, mix together the cooled orzo with the chopped spinach, sliced fennel, crumbled feta cheese, and finely chopped olive. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Finally, remove the cooled cranberry walnut crumble from the freezer and tear it into bite-sized pieces. Add to the salad and toss once more. Serve and enjoy!
🪄 Tips and Tricks
- Winter Vegetables: If you’re making a Christmas salad, some veggies that you may want to include in the mix are root vegetables like carrots or beets, and things like brussel sprouts, kale, or sweet potatoes
- Winter Seasoning: For holiday salads, consider incorporating flavors like cinnamon, anise, cloves, oregano, thyme, and rosemary into your dressings or salads
- Winter Toppings: For Christmas salads, you can add things like roasted nuts or seeds, or creamy goat cheese on top of your salad recipe
🗒 Substitutions
Here are some easy substitutes you can make to my below Orzo Salad recipe with Cranberry Walnut Crumble:
- Nuts: You can make this recipe nut-free, but your crumble won’t really have that crumble consistency and crunch
- Cheese: You can swap the feta cheese out of this recipe to make it vegan, or swap it for goat cheese or blue cheese if that’s what you prefer
- Spinach: Swap the spinach for kale in this recipe if that’s what you have on hand
🥗 Other Christmas Salads You’ll Love
- Winter Chopped Salad
- Roasted Beet Salad with Pistachios & Feta
- Warm Kale Salad with Lemon Thyme Dressing
- Fig, Walnut & Fried Avocado Salad
- Butter Lettuce with Apple & Cheddar
- Cornbread Salad
- Warm Kale Quinoa Salad
- Warming Caesar Salad with a Twist
👝 How to Store Leftovers
Like any salad, it’s always best to make it fresh. However, if you want to make this salad ahead of time, you can totally keep a few things separate. Make the crumble, make the dressing, and make the salad, and keep all three separate until you’re ready to serve, then mix it all together.
🤔 Common Questions
You want to think of in-season produce to include within your holiday salad. In-season, and/or warming and comforting veggies go great. Think of things like sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and kale.
You definitely can, but depending on the ingredients it may not be great the next day. If your salad has a pasta base like an orzo salad, it usually withstands pretty well in the fridge, however, if it primarily is made of lettuce (with the exception of kale), it’ll get pretty soggy.
Cranberries are one of the few berries that don’t taste fantastic when eaten fresh. They are best when baked or cooked into things where they soften and release their flavors. Eating it on its own, they are quite bitter and tart.
Christmas Salad Recipes: Orzo with a Cranberry Walnut Crumble
Ingredients
For the cranberry walnut crumble
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup frozen Cape Cod Cranberries
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 7 tbsp chopped walnuts
- 1/8 tsp chili flakes
For the dressing
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- juice of one lemon
- 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 small garlic cloves pressed
For the salad
- 1 cup dried orzo pasta
- 2 cups chopped spinach
- 1 fennel bulb sliced thin
- 3/4 cup feta cheese crumbled
- 1/3 cup castelvetrano olives finely chopped
Instructions
For the cranberry walnut crumble
- Make the cranberry walnut crumble: Add butter to a skillet over medium heat. Once melted add frozen cranberries, cook stirring often until cranberries are cooked to a jammy like texture. Turn to medium low and add brown sugar. Stir fairly constantly until brown sugar is dissolved and a bit syrupy. Keep cooking for a minute or two until everything is combined. Add chopped walnuts and pinch chili flakes, stir to combine. Cook 1-2 more minutes until everything is a jammy like texture. Pour onto a small parchment lined plate and spread out a bit. Let set until cooled in the freezer, about 20 minutes.
For the dressing
- To a small bowl or in a jar, add the dressing ingredients and whisk together or shake it. Set aside.
For the salad
- Cook the pasta according to package directions, making sure to cook to al dente since the pasta will continue to soften once it’s mixed with the dressing. Once the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse in cold water. Set aside.
- To assemble the salad, mix together the cooled orzo with the chopped spinach, sliced fennel, crumbled feta cheese and finely chopped olive. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Finally, remove the cooled cranberry walnut crumble from the freezer and tear into bite-sized pieces. Add to the salad and toss once more. Serve and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- If you love this salad you’ll enjoy our Greek Pasta Salad with Lemon Garlic Shrimp
