Blood Orange, Fennel and Avocado Salad with Lemon Citronette
This refreshing salad features winter citrus, fennel, creamy goat cheese and avocado, tossed with greens and a simple lemon dressing.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on June 27, 2024
Welcome to the redesigned cookieandkate.com! I’m not quite finished working on it, but I couldn’t stand to keep it in hiding for any longer. The website is finally optimized for viewing on your phone, your iPad, etc. No more pinching and zooming so you can read the recipe! Try it!
Another noteworthy feature is the menu I added underneath the header. It’s designed to help you find the kinds of recipes you’re looking for. Click on ALL RECIPES to see little pictures of every recipe on the site as usual, or narrow your selection by clicking on SALAD, DESSERT, etc. FAVORITES is a list of readers’ favorite recipes, curated by yours truly.
Over in the sidebar, you’ll find lists of special diets and ingredients. I added a gluten free and vegan option for those of you who are trying to avoid gluten and animal products. Please let me know if you’d like to see any other diet combinations and I’ll try to make it happen!
This redesign has been a long time coming. I did it all myself because I’m very particular (read: control freak). Lots of late nights, Breaking Bad and dark chocolate peanut butter cups were involved. I’m still working on the recipe index pages and the search functionality. If you have any suggestions or feature requests, please let me know! I’m all ears.
Now then, this salad. I’m pretty obsessed with it. Tangy goat cheese and lemon dressing tossed creamy avocado, sweet blood oranges, sliced almonds and greens is a winning combination indeed. I usually want fennel to speak up more (be bold, fennel!), but its faint licorice flavor and crisp texture is the perfect complement here. Enjoy!
Blood Orange, Fennel and Avocado Salad with Lemon Citronette
This refreshing salad features winter citrus, fennel, creamy goat cheese and avocado, tossed with greens and a simple lemon dressing.
Ingredients
Salad
- 4 large handfuls of spring greens
- 2 blood oranges, sliced into segments
- 1 bulb fennel, quartered, cored and sliced into super thin strips (reserve fennel fronds)
- 1 avocado, diced
- 2 ounces (about â…“ cup) goat cheese, crumbled
- 3 tablespoons sliced almonds
Citronette
- ¼ cup olive oil, more to taste
- 1 lemon, preferably organic, zested and juiced
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon honey
- Sea salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Lightly toast the almonds: In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the almonds for a few minutes, stirring frequently so they don’t burn. Once the almonds are fragrant and starting to turn golden, remove from heat and transfer to a plate.
- In a large serving bowl, combine the greens, segmented blood oranges, sliced fennel, diced avocado, goat cheese and warm almonds. If the fennel’s feathery fronds (say that five times fast) are in good shape, chop up a handful’s worth and toss them into the salad.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients until well blended. Whisk in more olive oil if the dressing tastes too tart. The final result should be pleasantly tangy.
- Once you’re ready to serve, drizzle citronette over the salad (you might not need all of it) and toss. Serve immediately.
Notes
Recipe yields 2 large salads or 4 side salads.
Storage suggestions: If you intend to have leftovers, store the salad and dressing separately until you’re ready to serve.
If you can’t find blood oranges, any tasty member of the orange family will do.
Make it vegan: omit the goat cheese and substitute agave nectar or sugar for the honey.
Make it nut free: If you want, try subbing the sliced almonds with a type of seed, such as pumpkin or sunflower.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
The new site looks great! Well done!
Thanks, Grace! xo
Oh my goodness girl, you have done such a brilliant job! I LOVE it! You should be so proud of yourself and this salad sounds like a lovely way to celebrate, refreshing just like the design. Can’t wait to explore!
Thank you, Angela!
I LOVE the redesign! Thanks for making it easy to find recipes by ingredient or by dietary restriction.
Also, blood oranges. YUM. If I can keep any around long enough to make this salad, I will. Thanks for sharing!
Gorgeous salad and your site looks so pretty! Perhaps you should start a side web design business :).
This salad looks absolutely fantastic! I think I’m in love!
Great work! I’m impressed you did it all yourself. And this salad is beautiful. Makes me crave warmer temperatures.
Love the new site! I’m also very particular so I can relate. This salad looks delicious and I bet the goat cheese just pairs perfect with the citrus.
I love the new site, Kate!! You did amazing job and this salad!! Yum! Beautiful!
Your website has always been lovely but I’m digging the clean new look, and kudos for the self-design! Thanks for another delicious looking salad recipe.
beautiful redisegn! love it! and I love all your recipes, have a nice weekend! kisses from Argentina! :)
This is exactly the kind of salad that I want to be eating this time of year, sooo good!
Kate! Wow! The site looks amazing! I am so jealous of your design skills! I wish I could redo my own blog!!!
Thanks, Stefanie! The redesign was really slow going, if it’s any consolation. ;) I love your site!
GORGEOUS redesign! And a gorgeous salad, too. Love it all.
Thank you, Stephanie! :)
Hey Kate–Checking in with the other Foodie Crush Friday Faves to say hello-great blog! -Lynn
the long awaited redesign! I’m in love! Swoon. And that salad? A+
I really like the new design, Kate. I’m a pretty new blogger but actually your site was one of my first ‘favourites’ and your clean black and white layout definitely provided a bit of inspiration for me when I was ‘designing’ mine (loose term – more like fumbling my way around WordPress and trying not to crash everything too often!) I love how you’ve kept your original style and ‘look’ but just modernised and streamlined everything a bit more. You definitely should put your feet up now and celebrate with one of those lovely cocktails of yours … while watching more Breaking Bad of course!
Thank you, Helen. You totally summed up what I was trying to accomplish with the redesign. :) Web design is hard! You’re right, I think I need a cocktail for all of this hard work… I was up late working on it and watching Breaking Bad last night, too. I’m almost out of episodes to watch!
Love your new design! It looks great and makes reading and browsing much more fun. The salad sounds very healthy and delicious.
Thank you, Nicha!
Hooray new design! It looks fabulous, and so does this salad. I am definitely feeling the needs for spring greens now!
Great design, love the way you streamlined everything. Beautiful salad!
the site looks great! what a lovely winter salad.
A well deserved salad for a lot of hard work. I need to put in the time on my site as well, I barely get a chance to sit and write a post. I am just going to have to go for it, maybe after I try this salad. Happy Nesting!
Your website looks great!! And looking forward to trying this salad! X
I just want to HUG your new site, it’s so beautiful!! I especially love all the fonts. They just make me happy.
And I also want to hug this salad. Or eat a whole bowl. Same difference.
Thank you, Joanne! :D
I’m very impressed! I can’t believe you designed this by yourself, I have tried to make minor improvements to my site and end up rocking myself in a corner trying to calm myself. tmi? It’s gorgeous, I love it. Very simple, user friendly and gorgeous. As is this salad. You rock!
You asked for suggestions for dietary highlights. How about sugar free and low sodium? Those are 2 I’m trying to work on myself.
Haha! That sounds thoroughly traumatizing. I took a web design class when I was 12 so I’m a nerd. Glad you like it. I’ll try to start labeling recipes that are sugar free and low sodium as such so they are easier to find. When you say sugar free, do you mean free of refined sugar, or no natural sweeteners, either?
Wow, that looks amazing! I will have to try that.
The site looks great!
We have had the best, juiciest Blood and Cara Cara oranges in Nevada. Probably coming out of California. I might try a Meyer lemon for a floral hint. The blog design is great. Thank you
Oh, those citrus options sound marvelous!
Woot-Woot!!! Things look amazing around here! Congrats on the re-design. This salad looks fantastic too!
Thanks, Andrea! :)
This is my first visit and I love your site! And this recipe sounds fantastic :)
Welcome, Tandy! And thank you. :)
Your website looks great and so does the salad! I recently switched my blog over to WordPress,(thanks to a suggestion from you!) and have been having a lot of fun, accompanied by a little bit of frustration, being able to make my page look exactly how I want it to look. I still haven’t gotten it to look quite exactly how I want it to, but it is a work in progress :)
I have to admit that I have never tried fennel before, so maybe I will use your delicious salad recipe as my first experience with it!
Hi Kate! Just wanted to drop you a line and say I love your beautiful blog and all of your great healthy recipes. I discovered you via Foodie Crush’s Friday Faves round-up, and can’t wait to follow along. Keep up the great work :)
Oh my gosh, it looks SO GOOD. Kudos to you for doing it yourself! That is amazing!!! It must’ve taken so long to get all of the little details right.
I love the abundance of pictures in the sidebar and at the bottom, yet everything seems organized and not crowded at all. It’s so easy to navigate and features your photography well. GREAT JOB!
Kate, the site looks great! I have to admit, I’ve never been a big fennel fan, but this just looks so beautiful that I truly want to give this a try!
nice webdesign…this salad, so yum!!
I’m in LOVE with the new typeface! Everything is gorgeous! Congratulations…. just lovely :) Good now that you’re finished, I can pay you to do my website too — HAhahahaa. I wish.
Beautiful wintery salad, too! That dressing sounds stellar.
Stunning. Such a beautiful salad and such interesting flavours.
This salad looks absolutely perfect and so gourmet. Can’t wait to make it – Pinned!
Love everything in this salad. My favorite combos for a winter salad!!
Oh and I LOVE the redesign!!
Love the site redo! So fresh, so clean. Same goes for this salad, yum.
I love your site design! It’s so clean. I also love the looks of this salad, such fresh flavors and a variety of textures. Are you in Kansas City? I’m headed there next month for Go Blog Social. Do you have any recommendations for places to eat with great vegetarian options?
Lindsay, so sorry I didn’t answer your question sooner! I highly recommend Eden Alley on the Plaza. It’s a vegetarian restaurant with a nice cafe feel and a great outdoor patio. I love their falafel salad. Füd and Cafe Gratitude are vegan restaurants, but to be honest, I’m not crazy about them. The Mixx is near the Plaza. It’s a casual place with really inventive salads and sandwiches. Westport Cafe (amazing drinks, fries, cheese plate, arugula salad) and Gram and Dunn (great patio and good salads) are two of my favorites for atmosphere. Pizza Bella in the Crossroads (the brussels sprouts app is stellar and you can get it without the pork) and Coal Vines Pizza on the Plaza are good if you’re in the mood for brick oven pizza. Hope this helps!
Hi Kate,
I started reading your blog a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it! The design is stunning and photography is simply gorgeous. There are so many great meal ideas and I have loved trying all your recipes out so far. They are perfect for a simple, healthy, inspired lifestyle. The soba noodle peanut slaw especially went down a treat and tonight I’m going to the chana masala. This salad also looks amazing and I cannot wait to try that too. I thought perhaps a navigation option for recipes that contain no refined sugar could be really useful.
Thank you for sharing your talent!
Best,
Emma xx
Emma, thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! I’m going to work on a no refined sugar category when I get the chance—might be a while, as it requires sifting through over 300 recipes, but it will be a helpful addition!
So fresh and vibrant!
the new website looks amazing! well done! and this salad is just incredible!
This looks so light and delicious. Can’t wait to try it. Love your site!
Hi. As a British person, please could you tell me what you are referring to with ‘spring greens’? In the UK these are young cabbage leaves and your picture looks more like ‘rocket’ (arugula) to me. I love the recipe on reading and am thinking of using a mixed salad bag of rocket, water cress and spinach – hope you think that works if you see this before Friday!
Looking forward to trying some more of your recipes as they offer something new to me and I’m not vegetarian but love all good fresh foods.
Deborah – UK
Hi Deborah, I’m sorry for the confusion! I believe I used arugula in the salad, but any fresh, leafy green will do. Your mixed salad bag sounds like it will be perfect.
Hola, acabó de conocer estas recetas y el sitio, me encantó, muy saludables las ensaladas, quiero seguir conociendo más recetas, gracias. Olvidaba, soy de Colombia, ubicada en Bogotá,
I went out to dinner with a group of friends last night and saw this salad on the menu (well, something very close to this salad). My friend ended up ordering it and I must say your recipe was 100x better than what the restaurant produced! This is one of my faves.
Thanks Kate!
Victory!!! Thanks, Nik. I’m glad you enjoyed mine!
Sooo I’ve made it my mission to try all the different veggies at my farmer’s market – not just my typical mix of the same 5 things on repeat. Anyways, I decided it was time to try fennel and since I’ve never not liked one of your recipies, I made this salad. I learned: 1) I really don’t like fennel and 2) your recipes are so awesome its not even necessary to like all of the ingredients to eat up. Tomorrow I’ll be reverting back to your spinach artichoke enchiladas, which I loooove…
I take back all the nasty things I’ve ever said about fennel! I braised a bulb with some carrots the other day, and had one bulb left sitting sadly in my crisper drawer. A stray blood orange was living in the drawer below, and I needed to use up some salad greens. This was wonderful, and hubby especially loved it. We served it with some wonderful grilled chicken. I’m thrilled to now welcome fennel to my repertoire. Looking forward to your cookbook!
Oh, I’m so glad it changed your mind, Debbie! It’s a brighter world with fennel in it. :)