Crunchy broccoli salad is a summer favorite salad that might just get the vegetable non-eaters in your house to enjoy their vegetables. Crisp broccoli, salty bacon, sweet dried cranberries, crunchy nuts and seeds, plus a creamy tangy dressing. It's great for summer lunches and dinners and easily prepped ahead for a fast and cool side dish for summer meals.
Broccoli is one of those dependable vegetables that's always around, and here's a way delicious to get more of it into your diet. With great flavors, textures, and colors, this crunchy broccoli salad recipe is a crowd pleaser. Steaming the broccoli briefly makes the broccoli florets more tender than in a raw broccoli salad. If you've never made one, I hope you'll try this easy broccoli salad recipe. It's also called a broccoli crunch salad.
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Why You'll Like This Recipe
- A crunchy vegetable salad is a tasty way to get more veggies into your diet.
- Easy to prep ahead and enjoy during the week.
- Nice for summertime served chilled.
- Great flavors, colors, and textures to make it a hit.
For another summer side dish with bacon, try this sweet corn succotash with bacon.
Recipe Ingredients
Broccoli salad ingredients
- Broccoli: Choose heads of fresh broccoli and trim them yourself for the right sized florets. In a hurry, buy bagged florets but results are better if you do it yourself.
- Bacon: Crispy bacon is a nice counterpart to the crunchy broccoli, or skip for keeping it plant-based.
- Dried fruit: Provides a nice sweet-tart addition to the salad, choose dried cranberries or raisins.
- Nuts: Chopped crunchy walnuts give the salad added texture and healthy fat too.
- Seeds: Pumpkin seeds are packed with nutrition as well as great flavor.
- Onion: Red onion is standard and adds nice color, but you can swap for shallot or even green onion or chives if preferred.
Salad dressing ingredients
- Mayonnaise: Many off-the-shelf brands contain not-so-good ingredients like GMO soy oil. I prefer the soy-free version of this brand for it's light clean flavor. It's egg-free too. Find it in the refrigerated dairy area of your market, or use your favorite brand.
- Sweetener: Honey or maple syrup add a little sweetness.
- Vinegar: Apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, or white vinegar all work.
Please see recipe card for measurements, salt and black pepper.
For a different dressing option, try this coleslaw dressing recipe with horseradish and Dijon mustard.
Chef's tip: Can I use frozen broccoli for broccoli salad? Fresh is best for this salad as frozen broccoli has a lot of moisture and is not as crisp. If frozen broccoli is the only option, cook it according to package directions until just tender and plunge into an ice bath immediately. When chilled, drain well and proceed with the recipe. The texture may be a little different but the flavors will still be terrific.
Substitutions and Variations
- Dried fruit: For a lower-sugar option to cranberries or raisins, try Golden Berries. They are lower in sugar with a sweet-tart taste. They are also known as poha berries or pichu berries. Good in crunchy homemade granola too.
- Nut and seed options: Try cashews, slivered almonds, shelled hemp seeds, pine nuts, or shelled sunflower seeds. Macadamia nuts are delicious too.
- For vegans and vegetarians: Skip the bacon and use a plant-based (egg-free) mayonnaise.
- Not a mayonnaise fan? Make the dressing with plain Greek yogurt.
For a sweet way to use dried cranberries, make chocolate bark in bite-sized cups.
Chef's tip on buying broccoli: There can be a lot of waste buying broccoli heads due to the heavy stems. Buying broccoli for these photographs I had 30% waste. If you want to try to use the stems versus toss them (or compost them), peel stems with a vegetable peeler, chop and freeze to use in soups such as this creamy broccoli soup.
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How to Make Crunchy Broccoli Salad
You need about 3 good sized heads of broccoli as there is waste with the stems. If buying bagged florets, you need a pound.
While the broccoli is briefly steaming then chilling, start cooking the bacon. Either chop the bacon strips crosswise into pieces before frying or fry the strips whole, then chop or crumble.
Chef's tip on red onions: If you find red onions too strong, after chopping, add them to a small bowl of ice water and soak for a few minutes, then drain and dry before using. This helps to temper the bite of red onions.
Serving Suggestions
All of the components for a crunchy broccoli salad are easily prepped ahead and refrigerated until serving time. I do them ahead and package individually, then toss to serve and add the dressing. It's a good meal prep vegetable salad, just package the dressing in small separate containers.
If you don't think you'll eat the whole batch, dress only what you'll need and refrigerate the rest in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Crunchy broccoli salad is great with just about anything such as grilled steaks, burgers, these oven baby back ribs, and grilled lemon chicken.
Recipe FAQs
To keep the broccoli tender but crunchy, steam or boil it briefly then immediately shock it in ice water, drain and dry. Shocking in ice water, also called an ice bath, stops the cooking process and keeps the broccoli crisp and bright green. The culinary technique is called blanching. Watch the timing on cooking the broccoli. It's done when you can just pierce it with the tip of a sharp paring knife. You want it crisp tender, not soft.
To keep broccoli salad interesting, try these fun ideas. Add small cubes of cheddar cheese, vary the dried fruit swapping raisins for dried cranberries or golden berries, use different nuts and seeds, add grated carrot for color, or finely chopped red bell peppers.
To make a broccoli salad vegan, skip the bacon and use a vegan mayonnaise. Add nuts and seeds for more texture and interest. For more color, add grated carrot or red or orange bell peppers.
More Great Vegetable Side Dishes
Versatile, there are so many ways to prepare them. Hot or cold, salads or sides, try some of these side dish recipes to change things up. You might find some new favorites. Check out the vegetable recipes index page for more inspiration.
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Let me know if you made this broccoli salad by adding a comment. I appreciate your feedback and enjoy hearing from you. If you loved it, please give it a 5-star rating! They really help other readers.
Originally published in August 2019
📖 Recipe
Crunchy Broccoli Bacon Salad
Ingredients
Dressing
- ¾ cup Vegenaise or mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar white vinegar or red vinegar
Salad
- 4 slices bacon
- 2 heads broccoli crowns about 1 ½ pounds
- ⅓ cup dried cranberries raisin or goldenberries
- ¼ cup chopped walnuts
- 2-3 tablespoons red onion chopped or sliced thin
- 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds raw or toasted
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Instructions
Prep Ahead Directions (optional)
- To prep ahead: trim, steam and chill broccoli, refrigerate. Fry the bacon, drain and chop, refrigerate. Chop the onion, refrigerate. Make the dressing and refrigerate. Toss before serving
To Make and Serve
- Whisk the dressing ingredients together until smooth in a medium bowl and set aside to toss the salad. Fry the bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels and chop. While the bacon is cooking, start on the broccoli.
- Fill a large bowl half full with ice and cold water for an ice bath. Trim broccoli florets into bite-sized pieces for 8 cups florets. See post photo for help. Save broccoli stems for another use. In a medium pot add a vegetable steam basket and enough water to come to the bottom of the basket. Cover with a lid and bring to steaming over medium high heat. Add the broccoli and steam for 2 minutes. Immediately remove the broccoli to the ice bath to stop the cooking process and retain the bright green color.
- To serve, add the bacon, broccoli, and all other ingredients to the bowl with the dressing and toss gently to coat. Serve immediately or refrigerate for an hour before serving. Salad is best dressed and served close to serving time to maintain crispness. Leftovers will hold up to two days well covered but the broccoli will not be as crisp.
Notes
Substitutions:
- Dried fruit: For a lower-sugar option to cranberries or raisins, try Golden Berries. They are much lower in sugar with a pleasant sweet-tart taste. They are also known as poha berries or pichu berries.
- Nut and seed options: Try cashews, slivered almonds, shelled hemp seeds, pine nuts, or shelled sunflower seeds. Macadamia nuts are delicious too.
- For vegans: Skip the bacon and use a plant-based mayo such as Vegenaise.
- For vegetarians: Skip the bacon.
- Not a mayonnaise fan? Make the dressing with plain Greek yogurt.
Porsche guy says
Im not a huge broccoli fan, but my wife made this and I really enjoyed it. The crispy bacon and those pepitas added so much taste and crunch. We’ll be eating leftovers again tomorrow. Nice for warm weather served chilled.
Debbie Burgess says
What a timely post as I just made this salad. I was lucky enough to find tender, fresh broccoli, so I didn't need to steam it, and I peeled the stems and chopped them. They were sweet! Also, I think the whole salad improves flavor and textures if you make this ahead of time, so I used two big crowns for just Bob and me, lightly dressed them, and we ate it with three suppers over the course of a few days.
Here in the South this salad is made with tons of Dukes Mayo and shredded cheddar, but I much prefer OUR version. Good post!