Frisée Salad with Zesty Orange Dressing

This light, crisp Frisée Salad features frisée lettuce, orange slices, radicchio, capers, and feta cheese, topped with a simple and bright orange salad dressing. A simple salad recipe full of texture and flavor.

Frisée is one of those greens most people walk right past in the produce aisle. It looks like lettuce having a bad hair day (I say that with love), but those curly leaves have a nice bite and hold up to dressing much better than delicate greens. Paired with juicy oranges and salty feta, the bitter greens mellow out into something you’ll want to eat by the bowlful. This is the citrus salad I make all winter when oranges are at their sweetest and everything else in the produce section looks a little sad.

My favorite way to serve it is next to a plate of 10-Minute Lemon Garlic Butter Shrimp for a weeknight dinner that feels fancy without any extra work. It also brings some much-needed color and crunch to a holiday table full of heavy dishes. Not an orange fan? Swap out the oranges for apples and toss the salad with my Lemon Garlic Vinaigrette instead.

Star Ingredients

• Frisée Lettuce –  This unusual lettuce is the backbone of this recipe and adds loads of texture. Not always the easiest to eat, which is why I have added some spring lettuce in there so you can more easily pick the thin salad leaves up with a fork. The spring mix gives more to put a fork into.
• Radicchio – Adds some colour and a bitter note to the salad, balancing out the sweetness from the oranges.
• Capers – Gives this salad a slightly floral note that goes well with the feta.
• Feta cheese – Creamy, salty and perfect for this salad. You can never go wrong with feta in a salad.
• Naval Orange – We’ll use the juice and each slice. The oranges are both sweet and meaty, giving this salad a little more substance and structure. You will need to section the slices, removing the outside membrane from each slice. A bit cumbersome but easy to do. Or if you are in a hurry, sometimes I drain a can of mandarin oranges or some fruit cups and toss those in instead.

Step-By-Step Made Simple

1. Add the spring mix, frisee, radicchio, red onion, capers and feta cheese to a large bowl. 

2. Using a sharp paring knife, peel the orange down to the fleshy part. You don’t want to keep any of the white pith, which is very bitter. Do this over a bowl so that you can catch any juice that runs off so that you can use the orange juice for the salad dressing.
3. Break the orange apart into the slices or segments. Sometimes this isn’t easy to do, so I use the paring knife to cut it into the natural pieces. Then use the knife to peel away the white outer membrane to reveal the fleshy orange inside. Again, over the bowl to catch the juice. Repeat with the other orange.  You should be left with about 1/3 cup of fresh orange juice.  Set the orange juice aside and add the orange segments to the salad. If you need more orange juice, you can squeeze the juice of a small orange or add store-bought orange juice if needed.

4. Next, make the dressing. Add the orange juice, olive oil, white wine vinegar, honey, salt and pepper to a small bowl and whisk with a fork to mix.
5. Pour the orange salad dressing over the salad when ready to serve and toss to evenly coat the salad. 

What is frisee lettuce?

Frisee lettuce is known as curly endive. It features curly leaves, which are green on the outside and yellow on the inside. It has a stronger flavour than regular endive and the insides are particularly good in salads. One of the characteristics of frisee is that it has a nice crunch – the perfect contrast to other varieties of lettuce, spinach and kale in salads. It’s also sometimes used as a garnish on dishes at higher-end restaurants. 

Storing Do’s and don’ts

• Don’t: Frisee is a rather delicate green. Do not wash frisee until you are ready to prepare it, as it doesn’t store well after being washed.
• Do: If the leaves are looking a little wilted, it can usually be revived by soaking it in cold water in a clean sink or bowl for 15 minutes.
• Do: Store it in the fridge. Frisee will typically last in the fridge for up to 3 days.
• Do: Wash it the same day you plan to use it because I find that once washed it doesn’t last long in the fridge before it goes bad.
• Don’t: Once this orange and frisée salad is made, I don’t recommend keeping it. The acidity in the citrus salad dressing will break down the salad and turn it mushy overnight.
• Do: Make the salad ahead of time and store in a tightly sealed container for up to 3 days without the dressing.
• Do: Add the dressing only when you are ready to eat it.