Cauliflower Salad with Dates and Pistachios

a clean-out-the-fridge salad

I spend a possibly unhealthy amount of time … oh you thought I was going to say scrolling TikTok and watching other people clean their apartments? I mean, yes, that too. But I was going to say debating whether one *needs* a recipe for something I like to make, such as a salad. Doesn’t everyone just grab random things that need to be used up and assemble them with a dressing? Yet my other favorite thing on social media is when something appears in my feed that I didn’t know I was craving and I spontaneously must stop what I’m doing and kick all of my existing cooking plans to the curb to make it. What if this is the one that provides this for you?

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cauliflower salad with dates and pistachios

JANUARY 10, 2023 JUMP TO RECIPE, COMMENTS

a clean-out-the-fridge salad I spend a possibly unhealthy amount of time … oh you thought I was going to say scrolling TikTok and watching other people clean their apartments? I mean, yes, that too. But I was going to say debating whether one *needs* a recipe for something I like to make, such as a salad. Doesn’t everyone just grab random things that need to be used up and assemble them with a dressing? Yet my other favorite thing on social media is when something appears in my feed that I didn’t know I was craving and I spontaneously must stop what I’m doing and kick all of my existing cooking plans to the curb to make it. What if this is the one that provides this for you? Thus, here is the salad I craved last week before hopping on a plane to Minneapolis. After lettuce has been so expensive, it felt timely to focus on one without leaves… until I saw the price of cauliflower. But the beauty of this kind of salad is that you needn’t feel overly tethered to these specific ingredients. This is merely a template for what I consider an excellent warm vegetable salad: a sturdy vegetable roasted until nearly scorched at the edges but still a little bite inside, so it doesn’t collapse into mush. Something salty and crunchy; here I’m using chopped salted pistachios but you could use another nut or sunflower seeds. Next it needs something complex like pickled or roasted onions; here I’m using segments of scallions because I have scallions more often in my fridge than I have almost anything else. A warm salad can handle an extra-zippy dressing, as the heat mutes it, so I’m using a whole lemon in mine, but to harmonize, I’ve also added bits of chopped dried dates (but other dried fruit would work too). Together this is perfect for me, and I hope it takes very few tweaks to be perfect for you too.