Paleo Broccoli Salad

Complete utilization of ingredients is the name of the game with this salad. We’re using the entire broccoli–florets to stem, plus bacon and all its glorious drippings. More often than not, Southern broccoli salad consists of a mayonnaise base. I’ve swapped the mayo for a quasi dressing made out of bacon drippings and, as hard as it may be to believe, this broccoli salad is quite light and refreshing. It’s definitely a recipe for those that love the sweet & salty combo.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb broccoli
  • 3/4 c slivered or chopped almonds
  • 1/2 c raisins
  • 6 slices bacon
  • 1/2 c rendered bacon fat (drippings) or olive oil
  • 1/4 c red wine or apple cider vinegar
  • s&p

Method

Set your oven to 375ºF. Place the bacon slices on a baking sheet and bake until they’re brown and crispy, about 25 minutes.

While the bacon is cooking, get out a large bowl. For the broccoli, use your hands to remove the leaves on the base of the broccoli. With a knife, trim off the tough outside of the broccoli stem, so you’re left with the tender, pale green center. It shouldn’t be more than a couple millimeters thick–so don’t hack! Chop up the stem into tiny, bite-size pieces and do the same with the florets. Complete broccoli utilization–woohoo!

Add the broccoli to the bowl, along with the vinegar, almonds, raisins and salt & pepper.

Once the bacon is done, remove from the oven and let it cool. Once cooled, chop or use your hands to crumble up the bacon and add it to the bowl. Pour 1/2 c of the rendered fat (drippings) from the bacon directly into the bowl.

Toss everything to combine. Serve immediately, or wait until it’s cold. It’s good either way.


Comments

28 responses to “Paleo Broccoli Salad”

  1. Just made this over the weekend. It was awesome! Even my wife and daughter who are not fans of broccoli loved it. My daughter even took it to school the next day. Thank You!

    1. that is so awesome! thanks dj!

  2. Even though I’m not a big fan of raw broccoli, I nearly doubled it on accident and this still turned out awesome! The tasty bits totally make this recipe. We’re making it for the second time right now!
    Thanks for the site! You make Paleo waaaay more fun 🙂

    1. aw, thanks jillianne. we live for this kind of feedback.

  3. Loved it! This was a big hit with the husband, but he’ll eat anything with bacon 🙂 I used 6 slices as called for, but I only got about 1/4 cup of drippings from it, and I made up for the rest with olive oil but it wasn’t nearly as flavorful as I felt like it should have been. The husband doesn’t like raisins, but I added them to mine and the sweetness really adds a nice touch.

    1. glad y’all liked it. does he not like dried fruit at all, or just raisins? cranberries, cherries, apricots…could work too.

  4. how many servings does this make?

  5. Fantastic! We combined this with the Cilantro Lime Roasted Chicken. Center cut bacon will give you just barely 1/2 cup. I would call this 4 servings. Well done again guys!

  6. YUMMMMMM!!! Just made this and it is SOOOOO GOOD!!! Used a little less ACV and a few extra pieces of bacon. Thank you for the recipe!! Will definitely make again! 😀

  7. This was a fantastic recipe! I made it and took it to a BBQ with some non-primal friends and I didn’t bring any home!! I didn’t tell them the recipe til AFTER they tried it so there would be no turning up noses at the idea of using bacon fat for dressing! Thanks!

    1. whoop!! so glad it was a hit, jessi!

  8. This was so awesome! I made it for lunch today and wish I’d made a double batch for meals tomorrow. I ran out of bacon so I added some left over grilled steak…I can only imagine how stellar it is with bacon goodness. Thank you for the great recipes

    1. you are very welcome…thanks nikki!

  9. I don’t know if you care or not, but I was looking up broccoli-salad recipes today and came across yours, and then came across it, literally copied word for word, on someone else’s blog. Just thought you should know. I normally don’t care about things like this, since especially when cooking from scratch recipes are bound to overlap, but they didn’t even change your wording.
    http://paleointensified.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/paleo-broccoli-salad/

  10. I love this salad and I NEVER eat raw broccoli. I was raving about it at work so now this is printed out and hanging in my office lounge because everyone was asking for the recipe. I have made it twice now and loved every bite!

    1. hahaha. i never eat raw broccoli either…just scoot it off the edge of the plate, hoping it will fall off! so glad you enjoyed it!

  11. Bacon and bacon fat are too be avoided on the pale diet right?

    1. More like required. 😉

      1. Do you prefer the apple cider or the red wine vinegar?

  12. […] Paleo Broccoli Salad From health-bent.com […]

  13. Thanks for this great recipe! I don’t normally like raw broccoli, but decided to give this a try as part of my paleo Thanksgiving. I don’t eat pork so I used turkey bacon instead and I chose to use apple cider vinegar. It was delicious!

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  16. This was delicious. I made it for a meeting group and they loved it.

  17. I can’t wait to try this!! Do you have the nutrition info?

  18. I’ve been making this for a while but I keep wondering how many cups of broccoli I should end up with after cutting it all up, because I seem to end up with varying amounts depending on how I trim the stalks. It’s always great, but does anyone have a measurement for the chopped broccoli?

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