Do you need a new, fun, fresh side salad for your upcoming Christmas meal plans? This week in our meal planner we featured a recipe I came up with that uses fresh cranberries that are on sale this week. I love fresh cranberries and they are so tart and festive in this salad dressing. Not only does this salad taste amazing, but it is also very pretty and would be a great addition to any upcoming dinner parties.
Ingredients
- SALAD:
- 1 bag 8-9 oz. baby spinach
- 1 head romaine lettuce chopped
- 1 can mandarin oranges
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries Craisins
- 1/2 cup mushrooms
- 1/2 lb. bacon cooked and crumbled
- 1/4 cup sliced almonds
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese shredded
- DRESSING:
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 3/4 cup rice vinegar
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 Tbs. dried chopped onions
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. orange zest
Instructions
- In a salad bowl place the bag of spinach and chopped lettuce. Top with the drained mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, almonds, cooked and crumbled bacon, sliced mushrooms and parmesan cheese. For the dressing, place all of the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until cranberries are chopped and the dressing is as smooth as you can get it (a few pieces of skin showing is fine). Pour the dressing over the salad when you are ready to serve.
