Word of advice: never try out a recipe with a million-and-one substitutions to serve at a family holiday. Sound, right? That's basically how I developed this recipe a few Thanksgivings ago. Yet, my family has been asking for it at every gathering since.
One Thanksgiving, I was tasked with bringing broccoli salad for our picnic-style gathering, even though my family isn't a broccoli salad-family. I quickly went to Pinterest for some inspiration. The recipe stems from The Food Charlatan's "Easy Broccoli Bacon Salad". I'm sure it's a great recipe as is, but I knew I couldn't convince most of my family to eat raw broccoli. Enter: broccoli roasted with garlic and smoked paprika. My family loves this as a side dish to meat and potatoes at home, so the next logical step was to incorporate it into a salad like this for our Thanksgiving picnic.
There was a great mishap when I created for the first time that was an important lesson in seasoning. Loving salt as much as I do, I seasoned both the broccoli and the dressing, resulting in an assault of salt. To remedy this, I hit the store and roasted a second batch of broccoli without salt. After mixing everything through, it tasted unevenly salted. I decided to leave that problem for the next day, because what else could I really do at that point? Much to my relief, when I tasted it the next morning, it was evenly seasoned because of that rest time. Lesson learned: season one thing at a time and taste as you go.
Not Your Deli's Roasted Broccoli Salad
- 3 large heads broccoli
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- 1 1/4 cup of your favorite mayo
- zest of a lemon
- juice of half a lemon
- dash of cayenne
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 cup dried cranberries (I used a reduced sugar one)
- 1/3 cup roasted and salted sunflower seeds
- 1 cup of your favorite cheddar
- 1/2 red onion, finely diced
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Preheat oven to 425F. Chop broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Coat broccoli with garlic powder, smoked paprika, oil, salt, and pepper. Spread evenly on to lined baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until evenly browned.
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To make the dressing, whisk together the mayo, lemon juice, lemon zest, cayenne, sugar, Dijon mustard, and white vinegar in a bowl large enough to fit your salad. Wait to adjust seasonings.
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Add the fixings (the dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, cheddar, and red onion) to your dressing.
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Cool the broccoli slightly before adding it to the dressing and fixings and stirring through. Cool in fridge for a few hours or a day in advance for best results before serving.
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