Blood orange, grapefruit and bocconcini salad recipe
A colourful citrus salad with beetroot, bocconcini, fresh basil and a simple honey and olive oil dressing
We had a braai with friends the other day and tired of the usual boring salads and sides, I decided to make something different. This citrus salad was a hit; enjoyed by both children and the adults and it went great alongside the braai meat.
Try to make this recipe at home and let me know what you think.
Serves: 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Ingredients to make the citrus salad
4 blood oranges
4 honey-gold grapefruits
500 g cooked baby beetroot, drained and quartered
250 g baby bocconcini, drained
175g pomegranate seeds
30g fresh baby rocket
30g fresh basil leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
maldon smokey sea salt
Ingredients to make the honey and olive oil dressing
80 ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed citrus juice, reserved from the oranges or grapefruit
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
How to prepare the citrus salad
Cut the top and bottom from each orange and grapefruit. Slice away the peel and white pith, then cut the fruit into rounds approximately 5 mm thick. Collect any juice released while cutting for the dressing.
Arrange the rocket across a large serving platter. Add the citrus slices, alternating the colours and overlapping some of the pieces.
Distribute the quartered beetroot and bocconcini evenly over the citrus.
Whisk together the olive oil, honey, citrus juice, vinegar and Dijon mustard. Season with salt and black pepper.
Spoon the dressing over the salad shortly before serving.
Scatter over the pomegranate seeds and fresh basil leaves. Finish with flaky sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Serve immediately as a fresh side for a summer lunch or braai.
Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe - I’d love to see it!
More recipes
Below the newsletter block, you will find some more recipes.
There are a lot of different types of meats you can cook on the braai. How about this Prime Rib Roast with Exotic Mushroom Sauce and Pak Choy? You can also make a Leg of Lamb on the braai or a Lemon & Herb Peri-Peri and Rosemary Deboned Leg of Lamb. I’ve also made Ostrich Fillet Kebabs with Nectarine and Rosemary on the braai.
Other than meat, South Africans also love to put seafood on the braai. This braaied snoek recipe with plum jam is a winner.
If you’re looking for a side on the braai, you can either make this pull bread with pesto, mozzarella and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, or make traditional braai broodjies (keep an eye out for my secret ingredient). If you have leftover gammon, these gammon braai broodjies are also to die for.
About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (8), Olivia (6) and Harvey (4).
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