Apple and Celery Salad on Arugula

I was looking at recipes on FoodBuzz today and came across this recipe for Celery Salad with Apple. The combination of apple and celery was immediately appealing. I like fennel and apple together so I knew this would be a good combination. Of course I needed to make the recipe vegan and tried to make it as healthy as possible without compromising the flavor. I added a healthy amount of lemon to the dressing since we love the acidity. Here is the salad we had this evening.

Apple and Celery Salad on Arugula
Serves 4

Ingredients:

½ cup raw cashews, soaked for a couple hours and then drained
1 lemon, zested and juiced
enough water to equal ½ cup when added to the lemon juice
1 pinch kosher salt
3 apples, thinly sliced
1 cup celery, thinly sliced
½ teaspoon celery seed
4 cups arugula
¼ cup walnuts

Directions:

Combine the drained cashews with the lemon zest. Juice the lemon into a measuring cup and add enough water to make ½ cup. Add the water and lemon juice combination to the blender with the pinch of salt. Blend the dressing until it is thoroughly combined.

Place the apples, celery and dressing and toss to thoroughly coat the veg with the dressing. Sprinkle the salad with celery seed and continue to toss.

To plate the salad place the arugula on the base of the plate and top with the salad and finish with the nuts.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 181.52
Calories From Fat (48%) - 86.53

Total Fat - 10.34g
Saturated Fat - 1.43g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 105.36mg
Potassium - 394.07mg
Total Carbohydrates - 22.02g
Fiber - 4.38g
Sugar - 13.02g
Protein - 4.35g

Comments:

This salad was everyone’s favorite dish tonight at dinner. The combination of apples and celery is fantastic. I particularly liked the lemon and celery seed components of the salad. I served it over baby arugula to add extra nutrition. Each serving of this salad is quite large and contains approximately 675IU of vitamin A, 65mg of calcium, 45mcg of folate, 40mcg of vitamin K, and 125 of phosphorus. This salad is lighter in nutrition than many of my salads but we enjoyed the flavor and would make it again.

With this salad we also had seitan, with a rhubarb and port cherry wine sauce from the freezer and sweet potato gnocchi in soymilk white sauce with dried cranberries. It was a very autumnal meal. I will try to post the sweet potato gnocchi method later tonight.