Grapefruit Pomegranate Salad with Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing

This delightfully refreshing Grapefruit Pomegranate Salad with Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing offers a satisfying complexity of flavors and textures in every bite.

We eat with our eyes, don’t we?

Do you find yourself gravitating toward foods that explode with color? I know I do. I can’t help myself. The brighter colors, the more my brain tells me I’m in for something good!

In this mouth-watering Grapefruit Pomegranate Salad with Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing, a bed of melt-in-your-mouth butter lettuce provides a cling-worthy surface for the velvety cilantro-avocado dressing, while the fruit lends sweetness, tartness and a welcome splash of color. If you can find it, opt for living butter lettuce.

Living butter lettuce is sold with its roots intact, which means the leaves continue to receive nourishment even while its waiting to be eaten. Butter lettuce is usually packaged in a plastic container to protect the leaves and is characterized by garden-fresh taste, even if you don’t have your own veggie garden. You might also hear this lettuce referred to as butterhead lettuce, Bibb lettuce or Boston lettuce. The leaves are typically broad, tender and well, buttery soft. I found mine at my local Sprouts Farmers Market, but I’ve seen it in most produce sections of conventional markets.

A Versatile Green Goddess Dressing that is Dairy-Free?

I did a little research to see how my dressing compares to other Green Goddess Dressings out there, and all the ones I came across had yogurt as the base. Nothing wrong with that, but if you’re sensitive to dairy, or adhere to a vegan diet, this version of the dressing is for you. It’s every bit as creamy as other Green Goddess Dressings I’ve tried, and vegan to boot!

The avocado provides the creaminess, and the olive oil combined with the lime emulsifies in the blender, creating a rich tangy magic sauce that can be used on a variety of dishes to add a blast of flavor. I love it as a dip for oven-baked sweet potatoes or as a “creamy salsa” for street-style tacos. It would be a great replacement for the cashew sauce in this buddah bowl. I’m giving you fair warning, you will fall in love with this Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing.

I love the way the dressing clings so perfectly to the butter lettuce leaves and how it brings all of the elements in this salad together. Give it a try, and let me know how you like it.

Print Recipe

Grapefruit Pomegranate Salad with Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing

In this mouth-watering Grapefruit Pomegranate Salad with Dairy-Free Green Goddess Dressing, a bed of melt-in-your-mouth butter lettuce provides a cling-worthy surface for the velvety cilantro-avocado dressing, while the fruit lends sweetness, tartness and a welcome splash of color. If you can find it, opt for living butter lettuce.

Prep Time15 mins

Course: Salad

Servings: 2 servings

Author: Jackelin

Ingredients

Salad:

• 1 head living butter lettuce rinsed, leaves removed and torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 grapefruit peeled and sliced
• 4 Tbsp of pomegranate seeds
• 1 Tbsp sliced scallion

Dressing

• 1/2 of an avocado
• 3 scallions
• 1 cup loosely packed cilantro stems removed
• 1 clove garlic
• Juice of 1 1/2 limes
• 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp  kosher salt
• fresh cracked pepper to taste

Instructions

For two salads:

• Place all the ingredients for the dressing in a high powered blender, using the "dressings" setting if your blender has one. You may wish to add a bit of water to thin the dressing out to a consistency that you prefer.
• Divide the lettuce leaves, grapefruit slices, pomegranate seeds and scallions into two salad bowls. Top with dressing as desired. Finish off with fresh cracked pepper (optional).

Notes

You will end up with about 1 1/2 cups of dressing. Store remaining dressing in an airtight container. It should keep in the refrigerator for about 3-4 days. Try it as a "creamy green salsa" for street tacos or as a healthy dip for oven-baked sweet potatoes.