Orange Almond Salad with Orange-Balsamic Vinaigrette

This is also the only time I use *gasp* canned fruit for anything. In fact, until a friend brought this salad to our house for a pizza night years ago, I'd never bought a can of mandarin oranges before. But since it's just a topping for fresh vegetables and adds such a nice contrast, I make an exception for this quick and refreshing salad - plus, it's just really tasty. There's something about the flavor combination of sweet onions, oranges and crunchy almonds topping lettuce or spinach that was so good the first time I tried it, I knew I would be making it again and again.

When I have fresh mandarin oranges - or even regular oranges - I will sometimes use them for this salad and they're equally as good. But it does take more preparation, plus I like to save the oranges for lunches and snacks, so I only use fresh oranges occasionally.

With just 4 simple ingredients and an easy-to-mix-up dressing, I'm pretty sure this salad will be staring in some of your menus, too! You simply start with a base of greens like the romain pictured - spinach and chopped, massaged kale is good, too - you can also add shredded cabbage. Then top the greens with part of a sweet onion you've sliced and then cut in half to make smaller, julienne-like pieces and add the oranges and roughly chopped roasted almonds.

To make the orange-balsamic vinaigrette, pour about 2-3 TB of the juice from the canned mandarin oranges into a 1/2-pint sized mason jar for the dressing before draining the rest (if using fresh oranges, cut the segments out leaving the membranes, and squeeze the juice from membranes into the jar or squeeze another orange for the juice). Then add the remaining dressing ingredients, cap the jar, and shake well (and ask yourself why you are buying bottled dressing...).

I like to use (affiliate links coming up...) these ReCap lids for storing our homemade dressings in mason jars. I LOVE them since I found them a few years ago when I used them for this ranch dressing gift. They make it so easy to shake, pour, and store your dressings in easy mason jars, as well as other things like homemade peanut sauce. They're not terribly expensive, but not cheap either - they are $7.99 each, but the best deal is 4 for $28 - and totally worth it, in my opinion (after years of reusing glass dressing bottles with cheap plastic lids that get coated with gunk and break...).

There you go - dinner salad served.