Crazy Good Celery Salad

This crisp celery salad has walnuts, parmesan cheese, and pomegranates. It’s refreshing, tangy, and delicious with a creamy vinaigrette.

I’m one of those people who can’t stand to throw away wasted food. I try very hard to find ways to use up everything I buy because otherwise it feels like I’m throwing away dollar bills AND something that was grown to feed somebody. It is inevitable that this happens sometimes, but I’ve gotten much better over the years at finding ways to pair things together in fresh new ways.

I called this recipe “Crazy Good Celery Salad” because it’s a recent Save-the-Leftover-Celery dish that I have become totally obsessed with. I love celery and buy it pretty often to make potato salad, egg salad, soups, etc., but I find that often I’ll only need a couple ribs, and the rest of the bunch goes to waste. One day I set out to find new celery recipes and I discovered this celery salad from Ina Garten. I changed a few minor things, but overall I had discovered something delicious that also fixed my leftover celery problem.

To start, I separated and cleaned a bunch of celery stalks (minus a few ribs that I used for potato salad):

Now you want to slice the celery into thin pieces. I used my food processor for this just to make the process really fast, but using a knife is perfectly acceptable too.

For the dressing, zest and juice a meyer lemon:

Add minced shallots and olive oil:

Then add anchovy paste, pepper, and salt:

Whisk for 30 seconds until everything is emulsified:

Pour the dressing all over the sliced celery:

Let the celery sit, and you’ll see that over the next hour, the celery will macerate and the texture will become even better:

Plate the celery with shaved parmesan cheese, parsley leaves, toasted walnuts, and pomegranate seeds:

Enjoy!

Celery Salad

Yield: Serves 4-6

Prep Time:10 minutes

Cook Time:0 minutes

Total Time:1 hour 10 minutes

This crisp celery salad has walnuts, parmesan cheese, and pomegranates. It’s refreshing, tangy, and delicious with a creamy vinaigrette.

Ingredients:

For the dressing:

• zest of 1 meyer lemon
• juice of 1 meyer lemon (1/3 cup)
• 1/2 cup flavorful olive oil
• 1/2 a small shallot, minced (2 tbsp)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 tsp anchovy paste

For the celery salad:

• 1 bunch celery, sliced (6 cups)
• 1 cup toasted walnuts
• 1/4 cup shaved parmesan
• 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
• 1/8 cup parsley leaves

Directions:

1. To make the dressing, whisk all the dressing ingredients together for 30 seconds until emulsified.
2. Pour the dressing all over the sliced celery and let sit for 1 hour. The celery will macerate and soften slightly. Move the celery salad to a serving plate with a slotted spoon (leaving behind any excess liquid), then sprinkle on the toasted walnuts, parmesan, pomegranate seeds, and parsley leaves. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Ina Garten

All images and text ©Fifteen Spatulas.