Broccoli Crunch Salad is a bright and beautiful, crunchy salad with a colorful blend of ingredients. This 20-minute recipe is a family favorite salad!
Crunchy Broccoli Salad
Broccoli crunch salad is a delightful salad starring crisp, raw broccoli to bring to warm weather picnics and barbecues. It’s a great make-ahead salad. And because it contains plenty of good-for-you broccoli, it feels better for you too.
Use any extra broccoli to make our beef and broccoli stir fry!
Main Salad Ingredients:
- Broccoli: Use fresh broccoli only for this salad. Cut a head of broccoli into florets. And then cut the florets into bite-sized pieces. Alternately, you could chop the broccoli into smaller pieces if you want this to be more of a chopped salad. The broccoli is not cooked. It’s a raw broccoli salad. Don’t let that scare you. Combined with the other ingredients, it’s an amazing salad!
- Red Onion: You’ll need finely diced, raw red onion for this recipe. It will add more crunch and tangy flavor to the broccoli salad.
- Dried Cranberries: These add tartness and sweetness to the salad.
- Almonds: I used sliced almonds for this recipe. You can also opt to use slivered almonds.
How to toast almonds:
The easiest way to toast almonds is to take out a small skillet and just add the slivered almonds to the skillet and set the heat to medium. Have a wooden spoon handy, and don’t leave those almonds alone! Stir them here and there, and watch the almonds as they begin to turn light brown. Remove them from heat, and scrape them onto a paper towel or plate so they can cool.
The dressing for this salad is lightened up a bit. It’s mayonnaise-based, but it’s combined with plain Greek yogurt to give it a healthier vibe. The dressing is enhanced with the flavors of fresh ginger and lemon.
How to make Broccoli Crunch Salad:
Combine the ingredients for the dressing in a large bowl. Then add RAW broccoli florets, red onion and dried cranberries. At this point, you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the salad for at least one hour (or overnight!)
Just before serving, sprinkle the salad with almonds for maximum crunch! Feel free to garnish the top of the salad with a few more dried cranberries or chopped red onion for maximum color!
Suggested Additions to Crunchy Broccoli Salad:
- chopped, cooked bacon
- sunflower seeds, cashews or roasted pepitas
- substitute raisins or dried cherries for the cranberries
- blue cheese or feta cheese crumbles
How do you store a broccoli salad?
There are a couple of options to choose from in terms of how to store your broccoli crunch salad.
- If you make the recipe as written, you can store the salad combined with the dressing for up to 24 hours before serving. I really like the salad to be able to marinate in the dressing for at least a few hours (or overnight.) The broccoli slightly tenderizes in the dressing and won’t be quite as crunchy. Then add the almonds when serving. Leftovers may be stored in the refrigerator for up to two days.
- You may also make the dressing and the salad separately, and refrigerate overnight. I recommend this because this gives the flavors in the dressing a chance to come together and meld. Combine the salad with the dressing the following day. This is the crunchiest option! Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days.
Broccoli Crunch Salad
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 3 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
- ¼ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
- 4 cups small broccoli florets
- ½ cup finely chopped red onion
- ⅓ cup dried cranberries
- ¼ cup toasted sliced or slivered almonds
Instructions
- In a large bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, yogurt, lemon zest, lemon juice and ginger. Add the broccoli, red onion and cranberries. Toss to coat. Cover and chill for 1 to 24 hours.
- Just before serving, sprinkle with toasted almonds.