A gloriously flavorful avocado toast salad with slivers of fennel, fresh blood orange, and a zippy lemon dill vinaigrette, whips up in minutes and is a surefire hit for any season. With a simple avocado toast recipe, prepared like a panzanella, this salad is tossed together before being lightly dressed, ready to be enjoyed for a simple lunch, or alongside dinner. A super simple salad, follow my preparation tips below to maximize flavor and minimize effort so you’ll be noshing in no time!
A salad for the ages
I’ve made a lot of salads over the years. From the most basic cucumber salad to fanciful harvest salad, it’s fairly obvious that my love for salads is strong.
Avocado toast has been around for a while now, and sometimes I worry the concept is a little played out. How sad, right?! I love me some avocado toast. But while browsing for new and exciting toast combos, I discovered several avocado salad recipes that had my heart fluttering something fierce.
And thus, I hit the drawing board, to whip up my own special version. A salad I am excited to add to my collection, and I hope to yours as well.
What bread should I use for avocado toast?
In truth, you can use any bread you like, even plain white sandwich bread. For a more flavorful experience, however, I recommend grabbing a crusty loaf of bread such as:
- French baguette
- Ciabatta
- Sourdough
Great meals start with great extra virgin olive oil, and for this toast we want to drizzle the sliced bread with some California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle it with a smidge of salt before baking it in the oven. Once it’s golden and crisp, it gets chopped up and topped with slivers of fresh avocado! Let your food shine!
How to make avocado toast salad
Since the only “cooking” we have to worry about is toasting some bread, this salad comes together rather quickly.
I toss all my greens and herbs into my OXO Salad Spinner to wash and dry them in seconds, which is easily my favorite thing to do (just push the button to stop the spinning motion). No more wasting paper towels to dry everything manually or letting them sit inside a colander for what feels like forever, just to find half of it still wet.
I swear there is nothing worse than soggy greens.
- Toss the greens with slivered fennel and slices of fresh blood orange, and cucumber.
- Whip up the lemon dill vinaigrette with California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil in the OXO Salad Dressing Shaker for easy, clean pouring.
- Add the avocado toast bites, feta, and seeds.
- Dress the salad, and voila!
I love my OXO tools, because no matter my healthy goal, they’re there to help make it better. Love it.
What does fennel taste like?
If you’ve never tried fennel before, you are likely wondering what it tastes like. Most people associate fennel with anise or licorice, as it has a distinct aroma.
However, the licorice flavor really only resides in the fronds, which we aren’t using in this recipe.
The bulb is sliced thin and imparts a slightly sweet, almost spring-like flavor to the salad. Plus, it adds extraordinary crunch. What salad is complete without crunch?!
Is there a fennel bulb substitute?
Of course! And while I don’t think there is anything quite as right for this salad as fennel, you can swap it with:
- Bok choy
- Belgian endive
- Celery
None of the substitutes provide quite the same flavor, but they will provide that needed crunch. I would personally choose bok choy as my substitute, and if you like fennel but just don’t have any available, you can add a few fennel seeds to your substitute to help mimic the flavor.
Avocado Toast Salad with Fennel, Blood Orange, and Lemon Dill Vinaigrette
This wonderfully simple salad will quickly become your new favorite with sweet blood oranges, crunchy fennel, and dreamy avocado toast bits tossed in a zippy lemon dill vinaigrette! Whether you serve this avocado toast salad for lunch or alongside dinner, it will quickly become a household staple, and a refreshing change from the salads of old.
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Avocado Toast Salad with Fennel, Blood Orange, and Lemon Dill Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Salad
- 6 1/2" slices french baguette
- 2 tablespoons California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil
- kosher salt, to taste
- fresh cracked pepper to taste
- 1/2 small avocado sliced thin
- 4 cups mixed greens
- 1 cup fennel sliced thin
- 1 cup cucumber sliced thin
- 1 small blood orange peeled and sliced
- 1/2 cup feta
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup toasted walnuts
Dressing
- 1/4 cup California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 1/4 teaspoons fresh dill chopped
- kosher salt to taste
- fresh cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add the baguette slices on a cookie sheet and brush with the California Olive Ranch extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake until golden and crisp, around 5-7 minutes. Let cool for a minute, then top with sliced avocado. Cut avocado toasts into small bites.
- Add the fresh greens to the OXO Salad Spinner and wash thoroughly. Turn the cleaned greens out into a large bowl, then add the fennel, cucumber, blood orange and avocado toast bites. Top with the feta, sunflower seeds, and walnuts.
- In the OXO Salad Dressing Shaker, add all the dressing ingredients. Shake vigorously to combine, then drizzle over the salad. Divide the salad between four plates and enjoy!
Nutrition
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of OXO and California Olive Ranch.
Jennifer Farley says
Jenn says