Brussels Sprouts Salad

Don’t knock brussels sprouts until you’ve tried this salad! Creamy Brussels Sprouts Salad is full of sunflower seeds, parmesan and cranberries. Ready for the table in 20 minutes.

Last fall I visited a restaurant in Chicago along with a group of food blogging friends. It was a tapas restaurant with amazing food, but the one I came away craving to make?

Brussels Sprouts Salad.

I know. I’m weird. I love roasted brussels sprouts with bacon and I also like cold broccoli slaw salads, so it’s no wonder that this slaw salad made with brussels sprouts hit the spot for me.

Can brussels sprouts be eaten raw?

Yes! Brussels sprouts are safe to eat raw. They may be harder to digest for some people rather than others, so if raw cabbage or broccoli makes you bloated, brussels sprouts may do the same.

What goes in shaved brussels sprouts salad?

We have just 5 ingredients that make up the base of our salad:

• Shaved Brussels Sprouts
• Red Onion. Use a sweet onion if you don’t like the strong flavor of red onion.
• Sunflower Seeds. We use salted seeds, which means we don’t add more salt in the dressing. If you use unsalted, you’ll want to add salt to taste.
• Dried Cranberries. Or you can use raisins if you’d like!
• Shredded Parmesan. Buy a block of parmesan cheese and shred it yourself. It will be so much better than the powdered parmesan.

You can also add bacon if you’d like. It’s so so good in this salad!

How to Shave Brussels Sprouts

There are two ways to shave brussels sprouts:

1. With a knife. Slice off the end of the brussels sprouts and discard. Then take a large knife and finely slice each brussels sprouts. Now you may be better with a knife than I am, but I find this time consuming. Plus my husband cringes when he sees me chopping little sprouts with a large knife.
2. With a food processor. This is by far the easiest way to prepare brussels sprouts for salad. Trim the ends of the brussels sprouts and discard the trimmings. Place the sprouts in a food processor. We find we only need about 5 pulses of the food processor to get the sprouts perfectly shaved. If you have a small food processor, process the sprouts in batches so that they chop evenly.

How to Make Brussels Sprouts Salad

I can have this salad ready in about 15 minutes. It’s quick and easy perfect for making at the beginning of the week for lunches.

• Trim the ends off the brussels sprouts. Discard the ends.
• Place the brussels sprouts in a food processor. Pulse about 5 times until the sprouts are shaved to the size you’d like.

• Place the shaved brussels sprouts in a bowl.
• Add the diced red onion, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and parmesan cheese.

• In a small bowl, mix together the dressing ingredients.
• Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

Homemade Salad Dressing

This salad dressing has a base of mayonnaise. Here are a few modifications you may like to try:

• Use homemade mayo. Then you don’t have any ingredients you don’t want!
• Use coconut sugar. We use this instead of white sugar quite often.
• Use monk fruit sweetener. This adds sweetener while taking out the calories of sugar completely.

Note…we don’t add salt to the dressing because we use salted sunflower seeds. If you use unsalted seeds, you’ll need to add salt to taste.

Looking for a lighter dressing? Try this oil & vinegar brussels sprouts slaw.

How long does this salad last?

This salad will last up to 3 days in the refrigerator. It will soften as it sits with the dressing on it. If you like a crunchier salad, wait to add the dressing until right before you want to eat it.

I often add a few extra shaved brussels sprouts on day 2 or 3 to make the salad crunchy again.

What to Serve with Brussels Sprouts Salad

This is one of our favorite salads to serve with grilled meats. Try it with:

• mustard chicken
• barbecue chicken
• pulled pork
• garlic butter steak