Winter Stacked Salad with Fennel and Pear – an easy and delicious holiday salad that is Whole30 compliant!

If you are looking for a fun way to serve your holiday salad – I got you guys covered!  This Winter Stacked Salad with Fennel and Pear is so ridiculously easy and will elevate your next holiday meal!

Who is pumped for the holidays (raising hand)!  While I am not pumped about the cold weather or the fact that it is now dark by the time I get home from work, I am super excited for all things holiday!  I love the get-togethers, family-time and all dat food!

And this salad is a super fun way to spice up your Thanksgiving or Christmas salad – these cute little stacks are simply apple, fennel and pear layered on top of each other.  You can use really any kind of dressing on it (or no dressing at all) – I would recommend just a little olive oil, mustard vinaigrette or a cranberry vinaigrette.  I absolutely love the idea of plating your salads – it just makes everything feel a little bit more fancy!!

This also happens to be Whole30 complaint.  A quick word on Whole30 during the holidays – I wouldn’t recommend it.  The holidays are full of traditions and parties and food.  Holding yourself accountable to a strict 30 day food experiment is not necessarily a good idea – for a multitude of reasons.  First, you are probably just going to resent the process for depriving you of your family traditions and food.  Second, you should allow yourself to indulge …. in moderation.  While I will have some (key word – some) Whole30 items on my Thanksgiving and Christmas menus, not all of them will be.  You couldn’t stop me from eating my mom’s homemade stuffing.  Seriously, nothing could stop me. But am totally making some Whole30/dairy-free mashed potatoes – because they taste amazing to me it isn’t something that is a major family tradition (recipe coming soon by the way).  It’s all about finding that balance and determining what is not negotiable for you and what is.  Even if you switch out a couple of holiday dinner items with a slightly fresher spin and leave your non-negotiable ….. I call that a win.

This salad is an awesome example of something that just happens to be Whole30 and it is something that I have served countless times both at holiday dinners or just random dinner parties (you know, those random dinner parties we used to have before kids ?).

But, if you guys are wanting to try Whole30 – I will be doing my next one in January (so mark your calendars and we can do it together!).  I know January is kind of a predictable/cliche time to be doing a Whole30 … ask me if I care ? I will be so ready to put the cleanest, healthiest food in my body by January 1st – for me it is just timing.  It isn’t a New Year’s Resolution thing.

Alright, this salad though – highly recommend.  Simple. Classy. Delish.

If you are intimidated by fennel – I just happen to have this handy-dandy post on how to cut fennel.  

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