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Broccoli Cashew Salad with Apples, Pears, and Cranberries is tossed with the most delicious homemade creamy salad dressing. This is an easy and healthy recipe packed with fruits and veggies.
The salad has an amazing texture thanks to the crunchy cashews, fresh vegetables, and fruits! The easy creamy salad dressing is made with mayonnaise, sour cream (or kefir or Greek yogurt), honey, and lemon juice! If you love broccoli salad, be sure to check out these 2 delicious salads: broccoli bacon salad and creamy broccoli and cauliflower salad.
This broccoli cashew salad is a healthy recipe that you can make any time of the year, but especially during the winter season to get a boost of antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber! It's easy-to-make, and it keeps well refrigerated. A great choice for family weeknight dinners, barbecues, potlucks, and parties!
Salad dressing
Whenever I make a broccoli salad, I love combining mayo and sour cream together for a creamy salad dressing and it's a lovely flavor combination! If you don't like sour cream (or don't have it), feel free to use kefir or Greek yogurt in place of sour cream for an equally good flavor! I also add lemon juice, honey, and salt. Make sure to soften the honey (by heating it up gently) before adding it to other salad dressing ingredients, to make sure it blends in smoothly.
How to make broccoli cashew salad
Broccoli salad is all about chopping up the fresh veggies and fruits and then combining them in a large bowl with a salad dressing. That's it!
- Cut broccoli into small, bite-sized pieces.
- Chop up a cored apple, cored pear, red onion.
- In a large bowl, combine chopped up broccoli, apples, pear, red onions, cranberries, and cashews.
- In a small bowl, stir together mayonnaise, sour cream (or kefir or Greek yogurt), lemon juice, honey, and salt. Tip: honey should be soft and runny. Warm it up if needed, so that it mixes easily.
- Add in the dressing and stir everything together.
Variations and substitutions
- Cauliflower. If you want to mix things up, use an equal amount of cauliflower to replace the half amount of broccoli.
- Nuts. Many types of nuts will work here. Use pecans, peanuts, walnuts, pine nuts, or pistachios instead of cashews.
- Dried fruit. Dried cranberries work great in this recipe, and so do dried cherries, raisins, or dried blueberries.
- Fresh Fruit. The mix of fresh apples and pears works beautifully here, but you can go just with apples or just with pears.
- Salad dressing. For the salad dressing, combine together mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, honey, and salt. You can lighten up the dressing by replacing some of the mayo or sour cream with kefir or Greek yogurt.
Other Broccoli Salad Recipes to Try
Broccoli Cashew Salad with Apples and Pears
Ingredients
Salad:
- 5 cups broccoli florets chopped into small bites
- 1 large apple cored and diced
- 1 large pear (firm, not soft), cored and diced
- ¼ cup red onion diced
- 1 cup cashews toasted or roasted
- 1 cup dried cranberries
Creamy Salad Dressing:
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup sour cream or kefir or Greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup honey softened or warmed up
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine together chopped broccoli, diced apple, diced pear, diced red onion, cashews (toasted or roasted) and dried cranberries.
- In a small bowl, stir together mayonnaise, sour cream (or kefir or Greek yogurt), lemon juice, honey, and salt. Note that honey should be soft and runny, warm it up if needed, so that it mixes easily. Whisk the ingredients until well combined and smooth. Add salt if needed.
- Add the dressing to the broccoli salad and stir everything together.
Notes
- How to roast raw cashews. I used raw cashews for this recipe, and I toasted them in the oven. Roast raw cashews in the preheated oven at 350 F on a rimmed baking sheet for 10 minutes or longer. Unlike other nuts, cashews can take more than 10 minutes to get roasted. They should change color and turn rich golden brown. Depending on your oven and your oven settings, that can take between 10 and 15 minutes (or even up to 20 minutes in some ovens). Move them around once or twice so that they roast evenly on all sides. You can also purchase pre-roasted cashews - they do not need roasting.
- Pears. Choose pears that are firmer in texture and to the touch. Otherwise, they might get mushy in this salad. I used firm pears without any soft spots or visible bruising on the skin. The same applies to apples.
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist's advice.
Thank you so much for this delicious recipe! I found it yesterday and decided to try it today! So I prepared it for tonight, it's in the fridge now but hope we can wait until dinner! Best wishes from Germany....
Kornelia, you are very welcome! So happy to have a visitor to my site from Germany! I spent a couple of months in Germany in the Summer of 2019 and fully enjoyed it! 🙂
This salad is so delicious!
How far ahead of time can this be made ?
I’d like to know the same thing!
I found the answer in an earlier comment:
You could make this 1 day in advance and keep it refrigerated in an air-tight container. I would add cashews right before serving, though, to preserve their crunchiness.
The dressing makes this Salad absolutely delicious. I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. This is my new favorite broccoli salad. Thank you!
I made this the night before 4th of July to try it out before my 4th of July party. I wanted to make sure it was worthy of presenting it at a 4th July party. My husband ate the ENTIRE bowl in one sitting. Needless to say, this recipe is delicious! I took it to our 4th of July party yesterday and it was also a HUGE hit! Easy to make and delicious flavor!
Love this recipe! Quick and easy. I grew up eating miracle whip on my broccoli so I substituted the mayo and it is delicious!
Absolutely delicious flavor.
I used lite mayo and fat free sour cream, as I did not have yogurt. I also added a tablespoon of Dijon mustard to the dressing. Instead of cashews, I used honey roasted sliced almonds, again, just because it was what I had. Wow .... was this salad a hit or what?!? It was amazing - I couldn’t wait for leftovers the next day! I would 1000% recommend this recipe and my friends do too!!
My hubby hates mayo. Is there another dressing substitute that would work?
My husband hates mayo and sour cream, too. Although he'll usually tolerate it in a yummy salad. I just thought I'd share that sometimes, if I want to be lazy when making broccoli salads, I will buy poppyseed dressing and just use that instead. It's a different flavor than this recipe, but still pretty good just the same.
hi I would like to know what kind of mayonnaise did you use4
This is delicious! I didn’t have cashews so I substituted pistachios. Unique lightly sweet, tangy dressing makes this salad!
What could you substitute for the cranberries? Not a fan.
Dried cherries or some nice golden currants or golden raisins.
I made this salad last night and the entire family enjoyed it. It a very unique in flavor and texture (especially love the pears and cashews) and is quite refreshing. I used a lot more Kefir as it created a healthier version. Our family doesn’t care for mayonnaise. Overall a perfect salad to add pizzazz during the winter season as you state
Thank you, Wendy, for such a positive comment! So glad you tried this salad and enjoyed it! 🙂
This looks delicious! Can this be made in advance, and if so, for how long?
You could make this 1 day in advance and keep it refrigerated in an air-tight container. I would add cashews right before serving, though, to preserve their crunchiness.
This is so yummy! I’m not a fan of raw onion so I left that out, so next time I’ll cut the honey a bit since it’s plenty sweet with the fruit. But I devoured a huge bowl of this for dinner tonight!
So glad you liked this salad! Thank you for sharing your comment! 🙂