Simple Shaved Fennel Salad
It’s one of the easiest salads you can make with fresh, clean, bright flavors! Our Simple Shaved Fennel Salad is a raw fennel salad that’s lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon to highlight their beautiful anise flavors for a super quick and healthy lunch or side!
Bring on Spring! Fennel is one of my favorite vegetables that we do use enough and with Spring almost here and all of its beautiful produce as well, I’m sharing one of my favorite, easiest salads that I fell in love with when I was in Italy. This Simple Shaved Fennel Salad is ready super fast and made with just a few simple ingredients for the freshest, brightest, lightest, and delicious raw fennel salad that’ll be a great light spring lunch or side to any meal!
Ingredients Needed
- Fresh Fennel – This beautiful anise flavored vegetable is totally underrated and underused in my opinion and it is delicious to eat raw or cooked!
- Lemon Juice and Zest – Just enough bright acidity to highlight the fennel.
- Olive Oil – This is when you want to use that good olive oil that you save for salad dressings!
- Fresh Parsley – A perfect herbal pairing for fennel!
- Salt and Pepper – The only seasonings needed for this simple raw fennel salad!
What is Fennel?
Fennel is a vegetable in the carrot family that is native to the Mediterranean, but unlike carrots, it is not a root vegetable. The big beautiful bulbs grow above ground and have long flowering stalks and fronds. On those stalks are beautiful light feather-like leaves that almost look like dill, called fronds. They are edible (and make a delicious pesto!), but often now in the grocery stores, you’ll find the bulbs trimmed pretty low so you don’t get as much of the fronds anymore.
Fennel can be cooked or eaten raw. When eaten raw it has a similar texture to celery with a licorice anise flavor. When it cooks it sweetens and softens and is often used in soups or stews and salads, but my favorite way is to eat it raw.
Ready FAST
The first step to this super simple salad is to prep the fennel. Trim off the end and the stalks and then you can either slice the fennel bulb in in half or keep it whole for when you slice it. We prefer it halved for easier bites.
Then, with the help of a handy dandy food mandoline, it’s a breeze to slice or “shave” the bulb. You can of course do this without a mandoline and just a very sharp chef’s knife, but a mandoline is one of those kitchen tools that you will never regret having around! We use it for ultra-thin potato chips, cucumber slices, zucchini ribbons, and more!
Once the fennel is sliced, then it’s just a matter of adding the rest of your ingredients and giving it a good mix. At this point can either eat it as it is or, what we prefer, is to let it rest in the fridge to chill and to allow the lemon and oil to slightly soften the fennel slices.
Simple Shaved Fennel Salad, done! Adjust the salt and pepper to taste – we add just a little less than 3/4 teaspoon of fresh ground salt. But we suggest, as to not oversalt it, start with less and then add a bit more to your taste. Also, keep in mind that coarse ground salt is going to be less salty than fine ground salt.
Recipe Tips
A key part of this shaved fennel salad is the “shave” of the fennel. We use our mandoline set to 1/6 of an inch.
When making a raw salad like this that has so few ingredients, this is when it’s important to use high-quality ingredients. Use a really good olive oil (one that you would use for a vinaigrette) and also higher quality salt and pepper. We love our salt and pepper grinder for this filled with some pink Himalayan salt!
Since everyone’s salt preference is different, we suggest starting out with less and then finishing with a touch more to taste!
Totally optional, but we do love to let this raw fennel salad rest a bit in the fridge to cool and allow the fennel to soften just a touch. 10 mins is about all you need!
This is a great simple salad to make ahead because it’ll keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. Make a big batch for a quick healthy lunch!
Tender but crunchy! Raw fennel does not get the love that it deserves!
You Also Might Like
- Asian Cucumber Salad
- Apple Fennel Chicken Salad
- Green Goddess Salad
- Caprese Zoodle Salad
- Raw Broccoli Salad
- Mandarin Almond Salad
- Mom’s Bean Salad
Simple Shaved Fennel Salad, your new favorite fast, easy, salad for Spring!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
If you want to see more, be sure to sign up for my 5 Easy Ways to Start Cooking From Scratch!
Simple Shave Fennel Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 large fennel bulb about 2 cups
- 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoons Pink Himalyan salt fresh ground, or other coarse ground salt
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse ground pepper
- lemon zest
Instructions
- Slice Fennel: Cut the end and the stalks off of the fennel bulb. Slice the bulb in half (or keep whole), and slice with the mandoline (or a very sharp knife) 1/6 inch thick.
- Assemble: Add the fennel to a medium sized bowl and add the olive oil, lemon juice, fresh parsley, salt, and pepper and mix well.
- Let Rest: Cover and let rest in the fridge for 10 minutes to slightly soften the fennel.
- Finish: Finish with lemon zest, mix, taste, and then add addtitional salt or pepper if desired.
- Enjoy!
My first time trying a fenell salad trying your recipe and I was not disappointed! I will definitely be using this salad often. Definitely a new favorite for me!
It is simple and easy to make, it is very helpful for someone like me who do not have that much time to cook for myself, i’m glad that i saw this online!