By Candice Walker on January 29, 2018 (Last updated January 29, 2021) This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
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This Grapefruit Fennel Salad with Cactus Pear Vinaigrette is a winter salad that will inspire you to include herbs in all your salads. While the cactus pear can be intimidating to use because of its hard seeds, I’m sharing a trick I use to easily remove them. As soon as you extract that sweet juice, you will want to use this fruit in everything.
Cactus pear tastes like a combination of strawberry and raspberry, and has hard seeds. The seeds are too hard to bite through, but you can swallow them and they are safe.
🌟Why you’ll love this recipe
Herbs work so well in salads and you can get them year-round. You can even grow them in your window sill. They enhance the flavors of all the other fruits and veggies in the bowl creating a flavor explosion you weren’t expecting.I use sharp mint, peppery basil and fennel fronds to uplift the salad base of lettuce.
A special dressing: the cactus pear juice has an amazing sweet-tart berry taste, often compared to strawberry or raspberry in flavor. We blend the cactus pear to easily strain out the seeds.
🧾Ingredients in this recipe
cactus pear – If you can find it, get it. Be careful with the prickly thorns on the outside, even if it doesn’t look like there are any. You can substitute with sweet berries like strawberries or raspberries. Do not use a tart berry or it won’t taste right.
fennel – use both the bulb, shaved, and the fronds, rough chopped. The fronds are the furry green parts that come up out of the bulb. You can’t always buy fennel with the fronds, and that is ok.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
👩🍳How to Make This Recipe
Segment your grapefruit and prepare the other salad ingredients.
Cut the pear in half. Scoop out the inside flesh or peel back the skin. You can eat the entire inside flesh, including the seeds. Be careful, the outside may have thorns even if it doesn’t look like it.
Blend together the dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor for 30 seconds. Strain to remove the cactus pear seeds.
Toss the greens, fresh herbs, and shaved fennel with the dressing in a large serving bowl. Top with the grapefruit segments.
🥗More Salad Dressings
If you like this recipe, you should check out my other salad recipes, or one of these favorites:
1fennel bulbshaved on a mandolin (fronds reserved and removed from stem)
1grapefruitsegmented
1handful of fresh mint leaveschiffonade
1handful of fresh basil basil leaveschiffonade
Instructions
Blend together the dressing ingredients. Strain to remove the cactus pear (or raspberry) seeds.
Toss the greens, fresh herbs, and shaved fennel with the dressing in a large serving bowl. Top with the grapefruit segments.
Notes
If you can find it, get it. Be careful with the prickly thorns on the outside, even if it doesn’t look like there are any. You can substitute with sweet berries like strawberries or raspberries. Do not use a tart berry or it won’t taste right.The seeds of the cactus pear are too hard to bite through, but you can swallow them and they are safe.
Did you try this recipe?I’d love to hear what you think! Leave a Review to let us know how it came out, if you have a successful substitution or variation, or anything else.
