Broccoli, Bacon and Mandarin Orange Salad

by Nancy

A colorful salad served chilled with fresh broccoli, bacon, cashews, onion and mandarin oranges with a lightly sweet homemade dressing.

When I’m at a grocery store, I like to check out the service deli case to see what kind of premade salads they sell.

These salads are the ones that are sold by the pound (or less) behind a big glass case and generally are located by the deli meats and cheeses that can be sliced and purchased by the pound.

The premade salad sections have sure come a long way from when just potato salad, macaroni salad and coleslaw were available.

Recently I bought a small container of broccoli salad to try, and it was really good.

I actually had my doubts because the broccoli was raw, and I wasn’t sure if it would have a lot of flavor.

But it had great flavor.

So, this recipe is my rendition of that scrumptious broccoli salad.

The fresh ingredients are mixed together with homemade dressing that’s slightly sweet and more on the liquid side.

It’s best not to store this salad in the refrigerator for more than a couple hours or the cashews and bacon may become soggy.

It just needs to be gently mixed again before serving so that the delicious dressing lightly coats all of the ingredients.

Let’s check out the ingredients.

Salad – broccoli, red onion, real bacon bits, whole cashews, mandarin oranges and dressing

Dressing – mayonnaise…

…rice vinegar, sugar and juice from the canned mandarin oranges (if the liquid in the can of mandarin oranges is not juice, then substitute with apple juice or milk)

HOW TO MAKE THIS RECIPE

A printable recipe with the measurements and instructions is located at the bottom of this post.

For the Salad:

Cut the broccoli into small florets.

To a large bowl,

add the broccoli…

…chopped red onion

…and…

real bacon bits.

Set aside.

Drain the liquid from the can of mandarin oranges and reserve the liquid if it’s fruit juice.

It the liquid in the can of mandarin oranges is not fruit juice, discard the liquid.

Set the mandarin oranges aside (it’s best if these are added at the very end).

To the bowl, add whole cashews and set aside while making the dressing.

TIP – Although I added the mandarin oranges to the bowl in the picture above, for best results I’d recommend setting the mandarin oranges aside at this point.

It’s best to add them after mixing the dressing in with the other ingredients.

This should prevent the mandarin oranges from breaking apart.

For the Dressing:

To a small bowl, add mayonnaise.

If the liquid in the can of mandarin oranges is a fruit juice, add 2 tablespoons of the juice to the bowl with the mayonnaise.

If the liquid isn’t fruit juice discard it and add 2 tablespoons of apple juice or milk to the mayonnaise instead.

To the bowl, add rice vinegar…

…and sugar.

Whisk together.

For Serving:

To the large bowl with the broccoli mixture…

…add the dressing.

Gently mix to coat the ingredients with the dressing.

Lastly, to the bowl, add the mandarin oranges and gently mix them into the salad making sure that they stay whole and don’t break into pieces.

Serve right away or…

…store in the refrigerator for a short while and serve chilled.

It’s best not to store this salad in the refrigerator for more than a couple hours or the cashews and bacon may get soggy.

If stored in the refrigerator, before serving gently mix the ingredients again just a little so that the dressing coats all of the ingredients.

Thank you so much for stopping by CCC!

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