Fight the hot summer days with an easy and surprising raw broccoli salad. Yes, I used raw broccoli florets for this salad. And I was very positively surprised. Of course, if you don't like broccoli raw, you can also shortly cook or steam it. We will explain some further variations later on in the article.

How to make easy raw broccoli salad?

This easy raw broccoli salad is really made in a minute (or fifteen). There's a bit of chopping involved, and the bacon needs to be fried, of course. But with that, you're almost done.

We start with the bacon. First we fry the bacon in a pan without adding any fats. We let it fry completely until it becomes crispy. Then we take the bacon out of the pan and let it cool. Once cooled, we chop the bacon into small crunchy pieces.

While the bacon is frying, we can cut the broccoli florets. We cut off the stems completely because they are too tough when raw. Cut the florets into small pieces.

We remove the outer skin of the red onion. Then we cut it into fine pieces.

Next, we mix the broccoli florets, grated cheddar cheese, red onion, dried cranberries, and crispy bacon in a large bowl.

Next we mix the mayonnaise with white wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar. We add this to the raw broccoli salad and mix everything well.

You can eat the salad immediately. But after a few hours in the fridge, the flavors will have blended even better. So, you can easily make this salad in advance and take it out of the fridge when you're ready to eat.

Alternative variants for this easy raw broccoli salad

Cutting the broccoli florets is the most work. But you can save cutting time by briefly mixing the broccoli florets in a food processor. Not too long, or you'll end up with mush. At first glance, this is faster. The downside is that you still have to wash the food processor afterward. So, whether you've really saved time is debatable.

Not a fan of raw broccoli? You can briefly boil or steam the florets. Let them cool well before mixing them into the salad. The downside is that they will be less crunchy and some of the vitamins will be lost.

For vegetarians, the bacon is, of course, an obstacle. But you can perfectly replace it with nuts. For example, chopped and roasted walnuts. Roasted almonds also fit perfectly in this broccoli salad.

More surprising.broccoli

Broccoli is a super vegetable: quick to prepare, tasty, healthy, … No wonder it regularly appears in surprising.recipes. Here you'll find more green broccoli inspiration:

If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.