Passover Salad with Herbed Horseradish Recipe

We love this Passover salad recipe from cookbook author and registered dietician Micah Siva!

I'm of the opinion that every Pesach spread should have a Passover salad in the mix.

At least, that's my perspective after encountering this herbed horseradish salad recipe from registered dietician and cookbook author Micah Siva.

Seriously though — it's not just flattery. There's a good chance your Passover guests will appreciate a lighter option in the mix to pair with comfort foods like potato kugel or flourless tahini brownies. Even if you're making one of these Passover appetizers, you need more vegetables on the table than what shows up on your seder plate. 

And this isn't a run-of-the-mill salad, either. With a crunchy almond-based topping and the zing of horseradish, it's decidedly Passover appropriate and interesting, without being too complicated to execute. In addition to being gluten-free and Passover friendly, it's also vegan, which means it pairs well with these other vegan Passover recipes, too.

Below: author Micah Siva making challah. Photo by Hannah Lozano Photography.

About Recipe Creator Micah Siva

This herby Passover salad recipe comes to us from Micah Siva's new cookbook, Nosh: Plant-Forward Recipes Celebrating Modern Jewish Cuisine, which was published earlier this month. We're sharing it here with her gracious permission.

Siva, who trained as a chef at Natural Gourmet Institute, lives in northern California. She's Jewish, and has fond memories and traditions of celebrating the Passover holiday with her family.

"My favorite part of the Passover seder was always sandwiching my matzo with a hearty dollop of spicy horseradish and sweet charoset," she wrote to Food Fanatic. "We have a tradition in my house during the seder that when we are instructed to 'point to the bitter herb [horseradish],' we point to my mom, because there was a story of when she was younger and a grumpy guest at the family seder table. When it came to point to the bitter herb, her family pointed to her, the bitter herb, paving the way for her nickname, Herb."

Siva's book Nosh isn't vegan (like this recipe), but it is vegetarian, offering more than 80 recipes that can work on various holidays (obviously including Passover, Shabbat, and more) or throughout the year. (Siva herself actually eats this salad recipe all year long, "but especially during Passover," she said. One of her friends loves the nut and seed topping so much that she creates a triple batch and uses it to zhuzh up all her salads, Siva added.)

"I wanted it to be the perfect book for anyone who eats meat, just as much as those who don't," she told us. "Sure, eating more vegetarian dishes can be good for your health, but I'm not here to tell people what to eat. Plant-forward eating is much more inclusive than vegan vs. meat eaters."

Or, as Booklist put it, "This will appeal to anyone trying to convince Bubbe that Passover can be done without the meat, with genuinely appealing options."

Below: author Micah Siva braids challah. Photo by Hannah Lozano Photography.

 

Why This Passover Salad

You mean besides the taste, right?

Because, as Siva puts it, "oftentimes people equate salads with a boring, lifeless dish that they have to eat, not one they particularly get excited about."

Instead, this salad is flavor-packed without relying on "loading it up with unhealthy ingredients, Looking at you, my beloved Hidden Valley Ranch.

This herbed horseradish Passover salad achieves that flavor with — you guessed it — horseradish. But also thanks to an array of ingredients like fennel, garlic, parsley, dill, and more that make it a "vibrant side" propelled by a tangy dressing and nutty sunflower and fennel seed topping.

And it fits in with the rest of what you're serving without being redundant or repetitive, maximizing ingredients and affordability while delivering on flavor.

Maybe now you can see why I'm arguing it belongs at every Passover seder!

Ingredients for Passover Salad with Herbed Horseradish

The salad itself relies on butter lettuce, a thinly sliced fennel bulb, a head of radicchio, an English cucumber, and a whole heap of herbs. (Hence, "herbed" in the title!) 

As Siva notes, you can actually substitute a wide range of different herbs in the recipe. She recommends using up lefter herbs you may have on hand. For example, the original recipe (below) calls for parsley, dill, basil, and chives. But if you have mint, tarragon, or cilantro laying around that is otherwise going to go to waste, use it instead (or in addition)!

I don't know about you, but I always seem to have too much dill and basil when I grab it — feel free to shame me for not growing my own — so my take leans more heavily on the original ingredients.

One of the reasons I love this recipe though is that it doesn't just pair well with other Passover dishes, but it's actually a convenient way to use up what you're going to have laying around, namely the parsley and horseradish needed for the seder plate!

The dressing here is pretty simple, ingredient-wise. It's driven by the horseradish, a 1/4 cup of lemon juice, some maple syrup or honey, and olive oil, rounded out by lemon zest and salt and pepper.

The crunchy topping — which is essential! — calls for almond flake, fennel seeds, sliced garlic, and sunflower seeds along with olive oil and sea salt.

Variations on This Salad

If you're looking to remix this recipe (because you can't stop making it but need some variety) or maybe you avoid kitniyot during Passover, Siva has a few tips.

"The magic in this recipe lies in the almond crunch topping, which is a Passover-friendly crouton alternative," she explained. "Substitute your favorite chopped nuts for the almonds, add a thinly sliced shallot, or add a chopped chili pepper for a little extra heat."

Sounds incredible to me, especially the idea of chili pepper and shallot together to add to the already punchy horseradish. Who says salad needs to be boring or bland!

Siva also has advice for people who are a little more observant than me:

"If you don’t eat kitniyot during Passover," she said, "omit the fennel seeds and sunflower seeds and replace them with additional Passover-friendly nuts like cashews or pistachios."


Our thanks to cookbook author Micah Siva, RD, for letting us share this recipe!