This scrumptious rainbow salad with a Chinese inspired dressing will literally have you eating the rainbow! No less than 12 fruits and veggies in all their glorious textures and colours. This colourful salad is perfectly balanced with sweet vs savoury, crunchy and crisp vs soft and creamy.

I will show you how to go about slicing the fruits and veg for interesting textures and also how to layer the salad successfully.

For more delicious, healthy and filling salads, try this brown rice salad, this Panzanella Toscana or this sweet potato and kale salad.

this recipe

Jump to:

• What's to love about this salad
• Key ingredient notes and substitutions
• How to make the salad
• Other notable additions to the salad
• Storage
• Recipe

Key ingredient notes and substitutions

The salad dressing ingredients - Soy sauce, oyster sauce, olive oil, hoisin sauce, honey, minced garlic, grated ginger, sesame seeds and a pinch of chilli flakes.

Rocket - We love rocket leaves for their herby, strong taste, but you can replace it with your own favourite salad leaves.

Red cabbage - Red cabbage adds just another beautiful hue to the salad with it's dark purple leaves. You can use white cabbage too, but bear in mind, this is a rainbow salad!

The berries - We use strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and cherries. Don't let this stop you from adding any berries you like, like raspberries, red currents or even grapes.

Watermelon - Unfortunately good quality watermelon is not always available throughout the year, especially in northern Europe. If you find yourself in this situation, consider replacing it with any other type of melon, like honeydew.

Pomegranate - This is a must for garnishing the salad. It's like scattering precious ruby gems over the salad. If you're a little hesitant to deal with harvesting the seeds from the whole fruit, many supermarkets now sell the seeds only. Have a look in the fruit aisle.

The rest - Celery sticks, cucumber, small tomatoes, avocado and sesame seeds for sprinkling.

How to make the salad

Do the prep:

• Wash and dry all the fruit.
• Chop the red cabbage, thinly slice the celery and cucumber into ribbons with a vegetable peeler, cut the watermelon into small triangles, half the strawberries, half the tomatoes, slice the avocado into thin slices and harvest the pomegranate seeds from the fruit.

Here's how to build the rainbow salad:

Start by scattering the rocket leaves over your board. This will be the base layer or foundation of the salad.

Next, loosely arrange the red cabbage into three piles.

Arrange the celery and cucumber ribbons in piles next to the red cabbage.

Start filling in the gaps with the watermelon triangles.

Add the tomatoes and the strawberries.

Now, add the dark fruits; blueberries and blackberries.

Place the cherries in prominent positions in the salad so they can be seen. Leave the stalks on for some interest.

Arrange the sliced avocado in various places, grouping 3-4 slices together and fanning them out.

Lastly, scatter over the pomegranate seeds and the sesame seeds.

You can now choose whether to drizzle over the salad dressing, or serve it alongside the salad in a bowl so each guest can help themselves.

Other notable additions to the salad

• Sliced peaches
• Mozzarella cheese
• Honeydew melon
• Carrot ribbons
• Flaked coconut
• Poppy seeds
• Herbs
• Micro salad
• Orange slices
• Mango
• Guava
• Kiwi fruit
• Apple
• Plums
• Dried fruit, like apricot or peaches
• Small red onion rings, or thinly sliced shallots
• Red/orange or yellow bell peppers

Storage

The salad is best had on the same day when it's still fresh and crispy. It would still be ok the following day if stored in an airtight container in the fridge, but, remove the avocado as it might go brown and make the whole salad look unappetising.

Recipe

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