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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 Author, Educator, Food Microbiologist
Kaitlynn is a food microbiologist and fermentation expert teaching people how to ferment foods and drinks at home.
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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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Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this e Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this earth.

When we had a food business, I could never shake the feeling that fermentation is not meant to be sold to you from a fluorescently lit grocery shelf in an endless cycle of waste. Fermentation is meant to be cultivated in your home, with your hands, with intention and love in a sustainable, grateful practice of reciprocity and nourishment. 

This is the story of how we got here. 

After so many lessons learned, our small fermentation business is now value aligned, peaceful, fulfilling, and happy.  It often seems like the gut feelings (the microbes within us) guided us in the right direction. To teach. 

You can learn for free on our blog, or you can enroll in our online courses (we extended our new year sale!) Either way, with me as your teacher, you’ll learn to adopt a holistic perspective on the microbial ecosystems that influence our food, lives, and the planet.
My favorite topic I teach in our online course is My favorite topic I teach in our online course is called Fermentation Variables. The whole lesson is centered around the fact that there are six main variables that influence the outcome of fermentation.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Sugar
Salt
Oxygen
Acidity
Temperature
Time

Temperature and time depend on each other most closely. 

that means, for all of our foods and drinks that ferment at room temp, things slow way down in the winter cold. 

The fermentation timeline is simply longer when it’s colder (and faster when it’s hotter). The microbes, kind of like us, make things happen slowly in the cold winter. 

I think this is yet another sign from nature that we’re supposed to rest and be gentle and gracious with deadlines, work, and not rush things this time of year. 

Let it be slow, it’ll still be great, it just takes a little more patience and time. 

If you’re looking to start fermentation as an analog hobby in the new year, our courses are 40% off right now! You can use code NEWYEARS at checkout. (Yes, you learn online, but it’s delicious, long form content + the skills are life long). What you learn empowers you to get off the computer/phone and go ferment some delicious foods and drinks. 

Touching cabbage and dough is just as good as “touching grass” lol 

Let me know if you have questions about our courses or just fermentation in general in the comments!

#fermentation
Yes cooking kills the microbes, but idc. I mean, I Yes cooking kills the microbes, but idc. I mean, I care, but in a “thank you for your service microbes” kinda way. 🫡

Cider braised pork and sauerkraut is a perfect choice for New Year’s or any winter meal! I lovvveee pairing it with butternut squash polenta bc it’s full of vitamin C for cold and flu szn. 

Eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day is a tradition. And I really do think it brings good luck and prosperity.

Get the recipe on our blog, linked in my profile and in story highlights! 

I’m really looking forward to creating more recipes like this in the new year, to show you all the joys of incorporating ferments into meals and recipes 😌✨ stay tuned! 

#newyear #sauerkraut #fermentation
One Christmas I gifted everyone in my family the N One Christmas I gifted everyone in my family the New York style sourdough bagels and they were thrilled. (The bagels we’re actually way under proofed, but I still gifted them and everyone loved them lol)

You can get the full recipe on my blog! And these can be made with discard and instant yeast or with just active starter.

 All the details are in the 5-star rated recipe on my website. 

#bagels #sourdough
This cookie dough is long-fermented overnight in t This cookie dough is long-fermented overnight in the fridge for the softest, most flavorful, melt-in your mouth sourdough gingerbread cookies.

For Christmas 2025, I tried something new with these cookies. I created a gingerbread sourdough starter to use in this recipe! I made it by feeding some of my established starter a mix that includes molasses and gingerbread spices. I just added the instructions for the gingerbread starter in the notes of my cookie recipe.

Get the full recipe and directions on my website! https://cultured.guru 

You can use the recipe index to see all my Christmas season recipes!

#gingerbread #sourdough
My gingerbread sourdough starter recipe 🎄✨ Like a My gingerbread sourdough starter recipe 🎄✨

Like and save for some fun Christmas sourdough baking! 

I made this up a few days ago to use in my soft sourdough gingerbread cookies. (cookie recipe is in my recipe index on my website!)

#sourdough #gingerbread
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