Red Cabbage Salad with Orange, Dates & Walnuts

Red Cabbage Salad with Orange, Dates & Walnuts — A Festive Favourite

This is one of my absolute favourite salads during the holiday season. It’s fresh, vibrant, and adds beautiful colours to the Christmas any table. While red cabbage might sound simple, this version has a lovely balance of citrusy brightness, natural sweetness from the dates, and crunch from the walnuts.

The secret? Paper-thin slices of cabbage. It takes a bit of patience… but the result is worth every minute!

Ingredients

• 150–300 g red cabbage
• 1 lemon
• A pinch of flake salt
• 2–3 oranges
• 4 dates
• 50 g walnuts

How to make it

Start by slicing the red cabbage as thin as possible — really thin… ideally paper-thin. However, if you slice it thicker, it will simply need a bit more time to soften later. A food processor also works well if you’re making a large batch, though hand-sliced cabbage gives the most luxurious texture.

Place the cabbage in a bowl. Sprinkle a pinch of flake salt (about ½ tsp) over the top and squeeze the lemon and try to cover the cabbage evenly with the juice.

Then rinse your hands in cold water and gently massage the cabbage for a few moments. Just enough to help the lemon and salt work into the leaves — very similar to the first step of fermenting cabbage.

Now watch the magic: a natural chemical reaction – the colour changes from a blueish purple to a bright magenta red.

Let the cabbage rest for 10–15 minutes. This step makes the cabbage not only tastier — but also easier to digest.

While the cabbage rests, cut of the peel from the oranges and cut the fruit into small pieces. A great little trick is to squeeze out the remaining juice from the orange peels into the bowl, so nothing goes to waste.

Add the orange pieces to the cabbage — either gently mixed in or placed on top as decoration.

Remove the stones from the dates, chop them into small pieces, and scatter them over the salad.

Finally, finish with walnuts for crunch and beauty.

Tips & Variations

There are endless ways to play with this salad:

• Use the zest from organic lemons or oranges for an aromatic boost
• Try different nuts: hazelnuts, almonds, or pine nuts
• Add a sprinkle of flax seeds, poppy seeds, or hemp seeds
• Decorate with jewel-like berries: blueberries, pomegranate seeds, or cranberries

In Denmark, it’s traditional to serve cooked red cabbage as part of the Christmas dinner — rich, sweet, and warm. It’s delicious, but also quite heavy alongside all the other festive dishes. This salad is a fresh and vibrant alternative that brings balance to the table. It keeps the beautiful colour and the classic seasonal flavours, but feels much lighter… and your stomach will thank you the next day! 😉

Just serve a huge bowl of this salad… and maybe slightly smaller portions of everything else 😉✨

In the photo below you see the salad with pine nuts and hemp seeds.

In the photo below ou see the salad with cachew nuts and poppy seeds.

In the photo below you see the salad with some left over parsnip and a mix of cachew, almonds and poppy seeds.

In the photo below you see the salad withblue berry and hemp seeds.