Italian winter salads are a very different animal from the mixed green salads you’ll typically enjoy in the summertime. In Italian cookery they rely heavily on bitter greens like radicchio and often include seasonal fruits like oranges as well as dried fruits, which for Italians also include nuts. Here’s one that perhaps encapsulates the genre like no other: insalata di radicchio, arance e noci, an utterly simple salad of radicchio, oranges and walnuts.

As simple as it is, this salad produces a beguilingly complex combination of contrasting colors, textures and flavors—the crunch and slight bitterness of the scarlet red radicchio, the sweet/sour of plump orange wedges, the chewy nuttiness of the walnuts and the silky, peppery bite of the olive oil.

It’s a salad I make often this time of year. I made it the other day for a friend who came for lunch, and it occurred to me that I’d never bothered to blog about it. Maybe because it’s so utterly simple, almost a non-recipe. But the combination is worth noting and, like many simple dishes, there are still some a few pointers to keep in mind including your choice of ingredients.

And if you like to mix things up, there are multiple ways to dress it up with additional components, dressings and toppings.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 as an antipasto or side

2 heads of radicchio
2 oranges
A handful of walnuts, to taste

For the dressing:

best quality olive oil
salt, preferably fine sea salt

Directions

If using radicchio Treviso tardivo as pictured here, trim off the bottom and separate the slender leaves. If using the round Chioggia or most other varieties of radicchio, cut the head in quarters, trim off the core, then cut the leaves into strips.

Arrange the radichio leaves on individual serving plates or in a salad bowl.

Peel the orange and trim off any stray filaments and pith. Separate the sections (you can cut each section in half lengthwise if very large) and arrange them on top or in between the radicchio leaves.

Crumble the shelled walnuts in your hand and sprinkle them here and there.

Drizzle with the olive oil, then sprinkle with salt to taste.

Serve right away.

Notes on insalata di radicchio arance e noci

There’s a saying in Italian that to dress a salad properly, you should be spendthrift with the oil, miserly with the vinegar and judicious with the salt. The saying certainly applies here, though you can be such a miser that you omit the vinegar altogether if you like. The oranges already provide the touch of acidity that vinegar would bring to the table, so to speak. And for me at least, it is enough. But if you do want a bit more acidity, do be discreet.

For more on dressing salads all’italiana, see this post.

Otherwise, as with any recipe as simple as this, the result will depend on your choice and the quality of ingredients.

Choosing and prepping the radicchio

Any type of radicchio you please will work, including the commonly found round Chioggia radicchio. But personally I love this salad made with Treviso, which has more delicate leaves. This time of year, you’re likely to find the unusual Treviso tardivo, with its slender leaves pictured here. They make for an even more visually striking salad.

As detailed in this post, radicchio comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You will prep each type slightly differently but the aim is always to end up with leaves that will blend well with your orange sections. The slender leaves of radicchio tardivo need only be cut from the core and separated, but the larger leaves of a Treviso precoce or the common Chioggia will need to be cut into pieces. A Castelfranco, on the other hand, can be handled very much like a head of lettuce, with the leaves left whole or, if very large, torn with your hands.

Choosing and prepping the orange

Again, any type of orange will do. Orange varietals tend to be very local, but here in North America I find that the Sumos or Cara Caras are both lovely choices. They have lovely sweet favor and also peel and separate easily. You could also go with clementines or mandarin oranges.

But good old standard Navel oranges will also work just fine—but since their peel won’t come off easily, you’ll need to peel them with a knife. Trim off a bit of the top and bottom, then place the trimmed orange on a cutting board and trim off the skin by running the blade right under the sking from top to bottom. See this video for a demonstration.

Speaking of which, especially if you’re working with an orange that doesn’t separate easily, you can slice them across the grain into rounds if you prefer rather than separating the sections. Or use a knife to remove the sections by inserting the blade between sections. It’s fussy work but not difficult. Here’s a quick demo.

It’s important to remove most if not all of the pith (the white stuff under the zest) that clings to the peeled orange, as it is very bitter. But for me at least, I find a little bit of pith adds character, so I’m not meticulous about it.

Choosing the olive oil

Best quality extra virgin olive oil is critical to the success of the dish. The oil won’t just add a silky texture, but also flavor. You can follow your personal preference here, but I like a fruity oil with a rather peppery finish, which compliments well the radicchio and orange. My favorite olive oil tend to come from Puglia and Sicily.

Variations

Switching up the type of radicchio and orange already makes this a pretyy variably salad. But there’s more you can do to vary this salad:

You can add more components to the dish. A few green lettuce leaves, for instance, or perhaps some watercress, add yet another color to the palette. A few strips of fennel adds white and a lovely anice scent.
You could also vary the topping. Instead of or in addition to the walnuts, you could sprinkle of some pomegrante seeds.
As for the dressing, if you want a bit more acidity, you could sprinkle a bit of white wine vinegar (not too much) or freshly squeezed lemon or orange juice. Some recipes have you make a proper vinaigrette. Freshly ground pepper adds a bit of spice.

Making the salad ahead

You can arrange the components for your insalata di radicchio arance e noci ahead of time, then dress it right before serving. A few recipes will actually have you macerate the radicchio in a vinaigrette, something that doesn’t appeal to me, but I imagine that the sturdy leaves of a Chioggia would stand up fairly well to that treatment, at the cost of some of their crispness.

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Insalata di radicchio arance e noci

Radicchio Orange and Walnut Salad

Total Time15

Course: Antipasto

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: easy, quick, raw

Servings:

Calories: 105.9kcal

Ingredients

2 heads of radicchio
2 oranges
A handful of walnuts to taste

For the dressing:

best quality olive oil
salt preferably fine sea salt

Instructions

If using radicchio Treviso tardivo as pictured here, trim off the bottom and separate the slender leaves. If using the round Chioggia or most other varieties of radicchio, cut the head in quarters, trim off the core, then cut the leaves into strips.
Arrange the radichio leaves on individual serving plates or in a salad bowl.
Peel the orange and trim off any stray filaments and pith. Separate the sections (you can cut each section in half lengthwise if very large) and arrange them on top or in between the radicchio leaves.
Crumble the shelled walnuts in your hand and sprinkle them here and there.
Drizzle with the olive oil, then sprinkle with salt to taste.
Serve right away.