Orange Salad

Name: Sicilian Orange Salad with Fennel, Onion and Olives
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Oranges 3-4; Fennel bulb 1; Sweet onion 1; Assorted olives 10-12; Olive oil 50 ml; Lemon juice a little (if the oranges are very sweet); Salt, black pepper to taste; Cold water to cover the onion; Herbs a sprig to garnish (optional)

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30 mins

The Sicilian salad of oranges, onion and fennel with olives, dressed with olive oil, is a traditional dish. I admit I never would have thought that sweet, juicy fruit combined with onion and other aromatic roots could taste so good. Probably we are just not used to such things and prefer a salad of fresh vegetables.

I read through many versions of this salad’s recipe and watched a lot of videos. The recipes, like the opinions of the cooks, often differ too much from each other. Insalata di arance, as this salad is called, is served both as an appetizer and as a side dish. Depending on how it is served, certain ingredients are usually added: grapes, raisins, herbs, anchovies and so on. But the base of the salad is unshakable: oranges, fennel bulb, sweet onion and olives. The salad is dressed with olive oil, salt and black pepper.

You can find many versions and recommendations for making this salad. It’s worth listening to all of them, but still, do it your own way. Sicilians will certainly tell you that this salad is made only from the juicy, sweet fruit of the “blood orange”, a variety of the ordinary orange that grows in abundance in Sicily. It is not a hybrid, as many think, they just grow that way. Then again, the orange itself is a hybrid. Blood oranges are rather rare in our shops, so ordinary orange ones are used. And the orange salad is most often simply called the orange salad here. On the menus of Italian cafes and restaurants you often see “orange salad”.

Orange salad served as a side dish goes wonderfully with roast poultry. It is a bit reminiscent of duck with tangerines. One peculiarity: this salad can’t be made ahead, only right before serving.

First, a juicy orange releases a great deal of juice. Second, vitamin C oxidizes quickly in the air, and its valuable properties are lost. And third, which is extremely important, when you see such a sunny marvel it is simply impossible to wait. Most of all, orange salad is very simple to make and quite suitable for frequent cooking. By the way, oranges are a wonderful ingredient for main courses.

More with oranges

Carrot Salad

1 h

Turkey Salad with Orange, Celery Root and Cashews

45 min

Braised Duck in Orange Sauce

1 h 45 min

More oranges recipes

Ingredients

2 servings

Oranges 3-4
Fennel bulb 1
Sweet onion 1
Assorted olives 10-12
Olive oil 50 ml
Lemon juice a little (if the oranges are very sweet)
Salt, black pepper to taste
Cold water to cover the onion
Herbs a sprig to garnish (optional)

Step-by-step recipe

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Oranges

Somewhere I read that oranges are extremely helpful for fighting excess weight. There are even whole diet systems based on oranges. I’m not a fan, no, and I don’t follow them. But it seems to me that fresh oranges, olive oil, olives and fresh vegetables are already a diet meal in themselves, and a very tasty one too. So, enjoy your meal in advance, everyone!
If you can’t get those blood oranges, any oranges will do. What matters is that they are ripe and juicy. Sweet, but not cloying. A sweet-and-sour taste is better, closer to sweet.
Peel the oranges like an apple, cutting off the peel and taking a little of the juicy flesh with the knife. Not the way we usually do it, scoring the peel and pulling it off with our fingers. This makes the rest of the preparation easier.
Cut out the orange segments with a very sharp fruit knife, leaving the membranes and pith behind. Remove any seeds you find at the same time.
Put the segments in a bowl and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

Onion and fennel

You need a sweet onion. A white salad onion or a red one, it makes no difference. What matters is that the onion is not sharp. By the way, a Yalta onion works great.
Slice the onion and soak it. Peel the onion, cut it in half lengthwise, place it cut side down on a cutting board and slice it with a sharp knife into very thin, almost transparent slices. Put the sliced onion in a bowl and cover with cold water while you prepare the fennel. This dulls the smell a little and makes the taste milder.
Slice the fennel. Cut the bulb in half and remove the top outer layer, which is tough and doesn’t go into the salad. With a sharp knife cut out the core where all the layers are attached; it is cone-shaped and looks like a cabbage stalk. Slice the fennel thinly across the bulb. The size is up to you; it can even be quite coarse.
Fennel bulb is a topic of its own. To many people, the smell of fennel is reminiscent of cough medicine. I’ll let you in on a secret: the medicine contains licorice, and that is its smell. The taste and smell of fennel are quite different, much more pleasant and delicate. In the salad you barely notice it. There is most likely no substitute for fennel: this is an authentic Sicilian salad.

Salad and dressing

Combine the oranges, vegetables and olives. Pour the juice that has collected in the bowl of orange segments into a glass or cup. You will need the juice later. Put the orange segments and sliced fennel into a deep bowl. Drain the water from the onion, squeeze it lightly, but not hard, and add it to the salad.
Add the olives. You can use plenty. Black olives are usually added, with or without pits. But nothing stops you from adding good green olives with a creamy texture, such as Sicilian green Nocellara olives.
Make the dressing. In essence, the dressing is a vinaigrette: olive oil with seasonings and vinegar or a sour juice.
But the orange in the salad is already sour enough, so there will be plenty of acidity. Hence two options. First, the orange is very sweet and hardly sour: mix olive oil with a little lemon juice. Second, the orange is sweet-and-sour: mix olive oil with the orange juice left over from cutting the oranges.
Add fine salt and ground black pepper to the mixture to taste. Whisk lightly with a fork. It emulsifies right away. That’s the salad dressing.
Dress the salad. Pour the prepared dressing over the orange salad.
Toss with a spoon or spatula.

Serving

Divide the salad among salad plates right away and serve immediately. You can garnish the salad with a sprig of herbs.
A digression. As I said, this orange salad is a base. Add grapes or raisins to it, and sugar instead of salt in the dressing, and you get a fantastic dessert. You will even forget about the onion in the salad. Add salted anchovy fillets and you get a snack for an aperitif. If you have no anchovies, salted Baltic herring works: boneless fillets cut diagonally into strips 5-6 cm long and 1 cm wide.
You can add chopped parsley or fennel seeds to the salad; there are such versions too. Use your imagination.

Calories and macros

420 kcal

Serving ≈ 500 g

Protein5 g5% of kcal
Fat26 g59% of kcal
Carbs36 g36% of kcal

100 g84 kcalProtein 1 gFat 5.2 gCarbs 7.2 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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