Fresh & Fruity Maple-Date Salad for Tu B’Shevat
Celebrate the New Year for Trees with this Tu B’Shevat salad with dates, apples, and a creamy maple dressing.
For years, salad to me was lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers with a simple mayonnaise-based dressing or vinaigrette. A fancy salad would be a caesar salad with Parmesan cheese and croutons! The idea that you can make a delicious, vibrant salad with tons of fruits and vegetables is a new concept for me — but I’m not complaining about it! I love having fun experimenting with salads, adding all kinds of fruits and ingredients that aren’t typical, and ending up with a salad full of so much flavor. My favorite part about salads is that there are no rules. Want some heat? Add some diced jalapenos.! Don’t have an apple on hand? Swap for an orange. You get my drift… make it yours!
A huge pet peeve of mine is soggy salad so I never dress my salads until right before I serve them. If I am not serving a salad right away, I prepare the dressing in a mason jar and keep it in the fridge until I’m ready to assemble. Most dressings can easily last up to two weeks in the fridge, if not more. If I am super organized, I’ll even cut up the components for the salad in advance and keep them in separate Ziploc bags until I’m ready to serve the salad.
While you can serve this salad at any time of year, it’s especially apropos for Tu B’Shevat. When I was growing up, my family never really celebrated Tu B’Shevat. My father would sometimes bring home some interesting dried fruits, but that was about it. In school, there was usually a culmination of a unit on the different brachos we make on foods around Tu B’Shevat time, which included a school-wide “brachos bee.” We would then receive a bag with dried fruit, including buksor, which is Yiddish for carob. (They always said it tasted like chocolate, but take it from me — don’t try biting into dry carob. You will be sorely disappointed!) Mostly, Tu B’Shevat was about knowing we are turning the corner of the very long Montreal winter — and after this year’s winter even on the East Coast, I’m almost feeling the same way!
Today, I still don’t do much to celebrate Tu B’Shevat, but I will try to make a bit of a nicer supper, making foods that include the shivas haminim, like this Tu B’Shevat Salad with Dates, to recognize the trees’ New Year.
Fresh & Fruity Maple-Date Salad for Tu B’Shevat
Ingredients
Dressing
- 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
- 2 Tbsp maple syrup
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp garlic powder
Salad
- Lettuce
- 2 Persian cucumbers, diced
- 1 carrot, julienned
- 6 medjool dates, chopped
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1 apple (peel on), sliced
Instructions
- For the dressing, place all ingredients in a jar. Seal and shake to combine. If it seems a bit thick, add a tablespoon of water at a time until it reaches desired consistency.
- Place all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle with dressing and toss to combine before serving.
Recipe by Faigy Murray | https://mykitchenmystudio.com/tu-bshevat-salad-with-dates/
