Carrot - Avocado Salad

This is a great winter salad chock full of healthy ingredients. The sweetness of the roasted carrots nestled next to the buttery creamy avocado slices is a nice contrast of texture and color. The salad is then topped with chopped parsley, roasted almonds and finely grated orange zest. Serve topped with the citrus vinaigrette to chase away any remaining cold weather blues.

I served this as a cold side salad, you could probably add any type of greens, like kale or spinach, even romaine to make this dish more substantial. This recipe is slightly adapted from the February addition of "Food and Wine" magazine.

Ingredients:

Vinaigrette:

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh blood orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

Salad:

1 1/2 pounds medium carrots (about 7 scrubbed or peeled cut into 1/4 inch coins)
2 avocados (sliced)
Salt and pepper (to season)

Gremolata:

1/4 cup roasted almonds (chopped)
1/3 cup parsley (chopped)
2 teaspoons blood orange (zest)

To prepare:

Preheat oven to 450°

Whisk olive oil, orange juice and coriander together.

On a baking sheet, toss 3 tablespoons of the vinaigrette with the carrots and season with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20 minutes. Set the rest of the vinaigrette to the side to finish the salad in the end.

Before roasting:

After roasting:

In the meantime, for the gremolata, in a small bowl, mix almonds, parsley and citrus zest together. Set aside.

Remove carrots from oven, let cool until ready to plate. Arrange carrots and avocados on platter. Top with the vinaigrette and gremolata. Enjoy!