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Salads & Sides

Fall Harvest Salad with Maple Dijon Dressing

This delicious autumn-inspired fall harvest salad with butternut squash, pecans, pomegranate, and maple dijon dressing comes together in just 30 minutes! It’s the perfect salad recipe for fall gatherings and parties. I love to make this salad as a healthy side dish option for Thanksgiving!

Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes
Total: 30 minutes
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Recipe Index | Cook | Salads & Sides

Fall Harvest Salad with Maple Dijon Dressing

This delicious autumn-inspired fall harvest salad with butternut squash, pecans, pomegranate, and maple dijon dressing comes together in just 30 minutes! It’s the perfect salad recipe for fall gatherings and parties. I love to make this salad as a healthy side dish option for Thanksgiving!

Fall Harvest Salad Recipe Perfect for Parties

Are you looking for a ridiculously easy salad recipe to prep for a party, potluck, or gathering? Well, this is the recipe for you! For parties, I like to prep the salad in a big bowl with a lid, then prep the dressing in a bottle. That way everyone can add their own amount of dressing! Even the homemade maple dijon dressing recipe is simple! Here’s what you will need to make the salad and the dressing:

  • Spinach
  • Roasted Butternut Squash (you can sub roasted sweet potato)
  • Sliced Red Onion
  • Pomegranate Seeds
  • Pecans
  • Corn
  • Maple Syrup
  • Dijon Mustard
  • Apple Cider Vinegar
  • Sauerkraut
  • Olive Oil
  • Black Pepper
  • Salt

Simple and Healthy Maple Dijon Homemade Vinaigrette Dressing

Making your own salad dressing at home is the BEST and it’s way easier than it seems. I like to add all the ingredients to the little dressing bottle I bought and shake it up. You can also blend all the ingredients in a blender for a more emulsified mixture. Feel free to sub out the dressing ingredients too! For instance, you can use whatever type of oil you have. I like to use olive oil, but avocado oil works great too.

Easy Vegan Thanksgiving Side Dish

My family is not vegan, so arriving to Thanksgiving parties without bringing a dish isn’t really an option. If I don’t bring anything, I don’t have much to eat. I like to bring this salad recipe I created because it’s not hard to make at all, and takes almost no time to prep. The holidays are stressful enough, so I like to bring the easiest, yet healthiest thing I can make.

This salad is also full of fall flavor, so it’s “on brand” for a thanksgiving meal. The pecans, pomegranate and maple dressing give off some serious autumn flavor vibes.

What to Pair With This Fall Harvest Salad with Maple Dijon Dressing

Here are two other super easy fall recipes you can pair with this salad for a full meal:

  • Baked Acorn Squash Stuffed with Vegan Mac and Cheese
  • Easy Recipe for Instant Pot Roasted Carrot and Turmeric Soup
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Salads & Sides

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Fall Harvest Salad with Maple Dijon Dressing

This delicious autumn-inspired fall harvest salad with butternut squash, pecans, pomegranate, and maple dijon dressing comes together in just 30 minutes! It’s the perfect salad recipe for fall gatherings and parties. I love to make this salad as a healthy side dish option for Thanksgiving!

  • Prep: 10 minutes
  • Cook: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients

  • 6 Cups Spinach
  • 2 Cups Butternut Squash, Cubed and Roasted
  • 1/4 Cup Pecans
  • 1/4 Cup Pomegranate Seeds
  • 1/2 Cup Corn, Fresh
  • 1/4 Cup Red Onion, Chopped

Dressing

  • 2 Tablespoons Tablespoons Dijon Mustard
  • 2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
  • 3 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1/4 cup sauerkraut with brine
  • 1/3 Cup Olive Oil
  • 1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Salt

Instructions

  1. Peel, cube, and roast the butternut squash at 450° F for 20 minutes.
  2. Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.
  3. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until emulsified. 
  4. Serve and add the desired amount of dressing! 

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a 5-star review below if you loved it! Tag @cultured.guru on Instagram

 

Nutrition information is auto-calculated and estimated as close as possible. We are not responsible for any errors. We have tested the recipe for accuracy, but your results may vary.

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Kaitlynn Fenley Food Microbiologist and Fermentation Specialist
Kaitlynn is a Food Microbiologist and FSPCA-certified fermentation specialist. An alumna of the LSU College of Science, she combines her academic background in microbiology with her Cajun heritage to create safe and delicious recipes.
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fermentation food microbiology sourdough sauerkraut fermenting at home fermented foods fermented drinks food safety and preventive controls
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hey i’m kaitlynn, i’m a microbiologist and together with my husband jon we are cultured guru.

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I give my water kefir grains some honey or molasse I give my water kefir grains some honey or molasses, a teeny bit of salt, and let them sit around in primary ferment for an extra long time!

Why? Because the microbes that build the grains like it. So the grains get big and strong. 

This is a little tidbit from what I teach in the water kefir lesson in our Fermented Drinks Semester online course! (Surprise treat for anyone who reads this caption: use code SPRING for 40% off our online courses)

I also share my water kefir recipes FOR FREE just ✨GOOGLE✨ “cultured guru water kefir” and you’ll see my full recipe with the perfect sugar ratios for growing, feeding and maintain water kefir grains.

#waterkefir #fermentation
Sourdough + cottage cheese banana bread 🍌 It’s go Sourdough + cottage cheese banana bread 🍌

It’s got 11 grams of protein per slice and can be baked immediately or fermented overnight for better digestibility. 🤗

Get the recipe on my blog! Link is in my bio!
#bananabread
Gosh I hope I pronounced Giardiniera correctly. 🤗 Gosh I hope I pronounced Giardiniera correctly. 🤗 

This jar I made was in my fridge for over six months, and it was time to do something with it. When I don’t know what to do with a ferment, pasta salad is usually the answer!

Get the recipe from the link in my bio! #pasta #salad
Healthy poop potion? I really do think my gut is Healthy poop potion?

I really do think my gut is loving this sauerkraut because of the celeriac (celery root), and I don’t have a science based reason for why. I saw this celery root in the store and had a gut feeling that I should make sauerkraut with it, and that’s how we got here. I guess my microbiome knew what it wanted!

Type “root vegetable sauerkraut -ai” into google and you’ll see my recipe! It’s also on my website homepage, also linked in my bio, and if you’re seeing this on Facebook, link is in the comments. Enjoy!  #sauerkraut
A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes b A lot of people think vinegar kills all microbes because shelf stable pickles do not contain microbes. But with shelf stable pickles, it’s the pasteurization/sterilization via hot water bath or pressure canning that makes shelf stable pickles free of microbes.

Hot hot hot acid in a pressurized environment does kill, well…most microbes. 

Think about “refrigerator pickle” recipes, though. They need to be stored in the refrigerator because vinegar alone doesn’t stop fermentation.

Fridge pickles are made without pasteurization/sterilization (canning) so they will wild ferment without refrigeration, and not necessarily in a good way because there’s not enough salt. 

All vinegar is made via fermentation too, and vinegar fermentation involves acetic acid bacteria, but also a ton of LAB, mainly Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc (the same genera you’d find in fermented veg.)  I linked a reference paper in my fermented mushroom recipe blog, so you all can read about the LAB involved in vinegar fermentation. 

Try 🍄‍🟫googlin’🍄‍🟫“fermented mushrooms” and you’ll see my recipe, it’s the first result (usually) 🤗

#mushrooms #fermentation
I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets agai I will not ever wild lacto ferment just beets again lol. Mixing with cabbage for beet sauerkraut is the best though! 

“Lacto fermented beets” was the first ferment I tried to make after learning sauerkraut in college. My best friend Sidney came over and we used these gorgeous beets from the farmers market, with 2.5% salt, and some spices. Well, it ended up tasting like beet moonshine and it was just… not good.

But it was a conduit for learning. Those beets were my first lesson in how different sugars and growth in the rhizosphere vs the phyllosphere influences fermentation. 

Cabbage and the cabbage microbiome offer a lot to balance out beets in fermentation, and I think mixing into a sauerkraut is the only way to go for lacto fermenting beets! 

Try googlin’ “beet and red cabbage sauerkraut” and you’ll see my recipe, I’m Cultured Guru.
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