Simple Citrus Salad

With all the citrus varieties on the market, finding a way fun try them all is a no-brainer. This citrus salad recipe is a fun way to explore their world. A simple yet, refreshing salad. Oranges, grapefruit, mandarins, and lemon all find their way onto a balanced plate.

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Recipe

Ingredients

Navel orange -2
Mandarine orange – 4
Grapefruit – 1
Finishing salt – Just a dash

Citrus citronette

Oranges zest – 2 tsp (2g)
Lemon zest – 1 tbsp (2g)
Grapefruit – 1 tbsp (1g)
Lemons juice – 5 Tbsp (73g)
Brown sugar – 5 tsp (22)

Procedure

Citronette

• Wash the citrus and remove any stickers.
• Zest the oranges, lemon, and grapefruit skin and place zest in a bowl.
• Add the brown sugar.
• Place a flat bottomed pan on medium heat.
• Cut two lemons in half, then place cut side down on the pan.
• Sear for about two minutes until the lemons are a deep brown color.
• Juice the lemons and measure the desired juice.
• Whisk all ingredients together.

Assembling Citrus salad

• Peel all of the citrus.
• Cut the oranges and grapefruit in half, then slice into half-inch slices.
• Slice the mandarins into Half- inch slices.
• Place all of the pieces onto a plate and top with the Citronette.
• Sprinkle with finishing salt.
• Enjoy.

notes

Avoid zesting too much of the white pith from the citrus. It will impart an unwanted bitterness.

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Citrus salad variations

Above is just a good blueprint for a year-round citrus fruit recipe. Sometimes markets and grocery stores don’t always have the exact orange or mandarines you need, but that’s ok. Navel oranges, pink grapefruit, and mandarines are just easy options. Caracara and blood oranges are great. You can swap the Pink Grapefruit for White, Yellow, Rio star, etc. One of my favorites during citrus season is TDE Maderines. However, I mostly used Pixe mandarines while writing this recipe. There’s a whole world of citrus fruit. The simplicity of the citrus salad makes it super easy to swap ingredients.

Simplicity

This recipe mainly focuses on the citrus fruit used. Orange zest, lemon zest, and grapefruit zest help those flavors pop. Adding too much can take away from a recipe. Simplicity is sophistication, but sometimes a few more ingredients don’t hurt. A little bit of cayenne in the lemon citronette brings a touch of heat. Sprinkling cocoa nibs or pistachios on top work as well. If you’re looking for that pop of green thyme or tarragon are delightful. The finishing salt at the end is optional but helps everything come together. Preparing the citrus salad is straightforward but can easily take an edgy turn.

Citrus dressing

Caramelizing lemons for the juice is one of my favorite techniques. It brings just a little bit of depth. That paired with the brown sugar gets us a roasty flavor that’s still fresh. Lemon zest, orange zest, and grapefruit zest all work to bump the citrus fruit flavor in the citronette. Also, if you didn’t know, a Citronette is essentially the same as a vinaigrette. The only difference is that a vinaigrette uses vinegar and a citronette citrus. Usually, they’ll have some form of oil, but we don’t need any here. Working on the citrus salad I wanted to let the fruit shine in all their forms.

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This citrus salad can hold you down on a warm spring day or in the midst of the winter citrus season. It isn’t too complicated and is an awesome way to eat oranges, grapefruit, and lemons. Thanks for stopping by the blog and enjoy the salad.

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