Celery and Apple Salad brightens your winter table

Winter is a great time for stews and braises. But after a couple of months, things can start to feel a little heavy, both on your waistline and your palate.

This Celery and Apple Salad takes advantage of winter’s bounty of apples to brighten up your table with a sweet and salty vinaigrette and the crunch of fresh celery. Adding strips of prosciutto could elevate this salad into a meal on its own, but it also makes a great side or starter salad.

Recipe: Celery and Apple Salad

The idea for the salad originally came from Lidia Bastianich’s book, “Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes.” That recipe uses the same dressing and apples, but it uses celery root instead of a celery bunch. It’s great, but cooking celery root is kind of a pain and and can take an hour for the boiling and then cooling and peeling.

This shortcut recipe comes together in under 15 minutes and should leave you with extra dressing to use on another salad later — or on a round two of this one because it’s so good.