Shaved fennel and orange salad with toasted almonds

Fennel gets ignored at the greengrocer. People walk straight past it, grab their beans and their zucchini, and go home. Meanwhile that pale, feathery bulb just sits there doing nothing — and honestly, that’s a shame, because shaved thin and dressed properly, it is one of the better salads you can put on the table in midsummer.

I’ve been making versions of this one since I was cooking at a small restaurant out on Broke Road in the Hunter. We’d run it as a starter through the warmer months whenever good navels came in. The anise note in the fennel and the clean acid from the orange are not complicated partners, but they work. Every time.

Why this shaved fennel and orange salad actually works

The short version: acid, fat, crunch, and a bit of bitterness. Those four things together make a salad worth eating.

Fennel shaved on a mandoline — or very patiently on a sharp knife — goes translucent and almost silky. It loses the aggressive raw crunch but keeps its anise character. The orange gives you two things at once: the juice goes into the dressing, and the segments sit through the salad adding little bursts of sweetness. Toasted almonds bring the crunch back. A few green olives cut any sweetness that might tip things too far. Radish, sliced thin, gives you colour and a second layer of bite.

Fennel is also genuinely good for you from a fibre standpoint. If you want to understand why that matters day-to-day, our post on why fibre matters more than most of us think is worth five minutes. The Australian Dietary Guidelines, published by the National Health and Medical Research Council, put vegetables at the foundation of healthy eating for good reason — and a salad like this is a straightforward way to get a decent serve into a weekday lunch without feeling like you’re eating for points.

What you need — and what to look for at the market

Buy fennel that still has its fronds attached. If it’s been trimmed to a bare stump, that’s a sign it’s been sitting around. You want a firm, dense bulb with fronds that are bright, not yellowed. Two medium bulbs will do the job here; you’ll get enough shaved fennel without the salad tipping into a pure fennel experience, which can happen if you’re heavy-handed.

For the oranges, navel or cara cara both work well. Cara cara will give you a slightly deeper colour and a hint more sweetness. Blood oranges, if you can find them in season (roughly June through August in most Australian markets), are worth trying — the colour contrast against the pale fennel is genuinely good-looking on a plate.

One note on the almonds: buy raw and toast them yourself. Pre-toasted, pre-salted almonds from a packet are fine for snacking but they’ll muddy the dressing here. It takes four minutes in a dry pan and it makes a difference. Don’t muck about with the packet version.

Ingredients

Serves 4 as a side or light lunch

• 2 medium fennel bulbs, fronds reserved
• 3 medium navel oranges (2 segmented, 1 juiced for the dressing)
• 80 g raw almonds, roughly chopped
• 4–5 red radishes, very thinly sliced
• 60 g green olives, pitted and halved (Sicilian-style if you can find them)
• 80 g baby rocket leaves
• 1 small French shallot, very finely sliced
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• Dressing:
• 3 tbsp fresh orange juice (from the third orange)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp raw honey
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Toast the almonds first. Put a dry frying pan over medium heat and add the chopped almonds. Stir them around for 3–4 minutes until they’re golden and fragrant. Tip onto a plate and leave them to cool — they’ll firm up as they cool. Don’t walk off and forget them; they go from golden to burnt fast.
2. Trim the fennel: cut off the fronds (set a small handful aside), remove the outer layer if it’s tough or blemished, and cut each bulb in half lengthways. Use a mandoline on its thinnest setting, or a sharp knife, to shave each half into fine slices. You’re going for translucent, not chunky. Drop the shaved fennel straight into a large bowl of cold water with a squeeze of lemon juice while you work — this keeps it from browning and also crisps it up nicely.
3. Segment the two oranges. Slice off the top and bottom of each one, stand it on the board, and cut the peel away following the curve of the fruit. Then cut each segment free from the membrane over a small bowl to catch the juice. Set segments aside. Juice the third orange and add it to the bowl of juice — you want about 3 tablespoons total for the dressing.
4. Make the dressing. Combine the orange juice, lemon juice, honey, and mustard in a small jar. Season with a pinch of salt, then add the olive oil. Shake or whisk until it comes together. Taste as you go — if it’s too sharp, add a touch more honey; if it’s flat, add a few drops more lemon.
5. Drain the fennel and spin or pat it dry. Put the rocket in your largest wide bowl or on a platter. Scatter the fennel over the top, then the radish slices, shallot, olive halves, and orange segments.
6. Pour the dressing over and toss gently — I use my hands for this, which is faster and less brutal on the segments. Scatter the toasted almonds and a few torn fennel fronds over the top. Crack black pepper over liberally and serve immediately.

A word on mandolines and shortcuts that don’t work

I’m going to be blunt: if you try to shave fennel with a dull knife, you’ll get wedges, not slices, and the texture of this salad falls apart. Either sharpen the knife before you start or get a mandoline. A basic Japanese-style mandoline costs about thirty dollars and it will earn that back inside a month. I use mine constantly — fennel, radish, cucumber, zucchini ribbons. Worth it.

One shortcut that genuinely does not work: bottled citrus juice in the dressing. The flavour is flat and slightly stale and it shows. Fresh orange takes forty seconds to juice. Do it properly.

(Wry aside: I once watched a very confident cooking show host substitute bottled orange juice and describe the result as ‘vibrant’. Reader, it was not vibrant.)

How to serve it and what to put alongside

This salad is good enough to eat as a standalone light lunch with some good bread. But it also does serious work alongside fish. We’ve got a poached salmon with fennel, orange and chilli recipe on the site that pairs logically with this — double down on the fennel theme and you won’t hear any complaints. The blue eyed cod with carrot puree and sauce vierge would sit alongside this beautifully too, if you’re after a more substantial plate.

For a completely plant-based lunch, add a tin of drained cannellini beans tossed through before dressing. They add body and protein without changing the character of the salad. Or try it alongside our chickpea and roast capsicum salad as part of a spread — those two together cover a lot of nutritional ground and make a proper lunch out of nothing complicated.

One variation worth trying

Swap the almonds for toasted hazelnuts, remove the skins while they’re still warm, and add 40 g of crumbled goat’s cheese or soft feta through the salad before you dress it. The creaminess against the crisp fennel and the acid of the orange is a slightly richer version of the same idea. Good for a weekend lunch when you want something that feels a bit more put-together.

If you’re curious about how dishes like this fit into a broader approach to eating well through the day, the mindful eating guide on this site is a sensible place to start — less about restriction, more about actually paying attention to what you’re eating and why.

The fennel season in south-eastern Australia runs roughly through autumn and into winter, but most decent greengrocers and markets carry it year-round. Nutrition Australia notes fennel as a good source of vitamin C, potassium, and dietary fibre — so there’s more going on here than the flavour alone. Worth remembering when you’re building out a lighter lunch plate.

Make it once and you’ll stop walking past the fennel.

— Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen