Grapefruit and avocado make the perfect pair in this cheerful, healthy salad! Dressed with a light citrus vinaigrette.
Two simple foods that pair perfectly together are grapefruit and avocado. Avocado loves the bright splash of acidic citrus, and grapefruit loves the warm richness of avocado.
Sprinkle everything with a citrusy vinaigrette and you have a salad that is delicious as it is pretty!
Grapefruit, like most citrus, is in high season during the gloomiest winter months, making this salad a welcome blast of color in the winter, as well as a refreshing salad in the summer.
Serve it alongside a little cracked crab meat or pink shrimp, or just on its own.
The hardest part of making the salad is segmenting the grapefruit. Helen of Beyond Salmon shows in detail steps to segment an orange which is almost identical to how I segment grapefruit.
Grapefruit are bigger than oranges with thicker membranes making them easier to work with than oranges. Segmenting them the way we describe here is called “supreming” the fruit. It’s actually pretty quick and easy once you’ve got the hang of it. Or you can just manually peel away the bitter membranes; that works too.
A final note, we’ve included a citrusy vinaigrette to serve as the dressing for this salad. My mother also likes to make the salad with a little dressing she makes from stirring in some homemade plum jam into mayo, like a thousand island dressing.
Grapefruit Avocado Salad Recipe
- Prep time: 20 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
The vinaigrette recipe makes more dressing than you will need for the amount of avocado and grapefruit. Just refrigerate the extra in a jar and save to dress another salad!
Ingredients
- 2 avocados, peeled and sliced
- 2 grapefruits, peeled, segmented, seeds removed (see method below for how to « supreme » a grapefruit)
- Lettuce
Citrus vinaigrette:
- 1/2 shallot minced (1 Tbsp)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lime zest
- 3 Tbsp lime juice
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Method
1 In a small bowl, mix the vinaigrette ingredients.
2 Prep the grapefruit segments: To supreme the grapefruit, first slice off a half-inch or more from the stem end and the blossom end of the fruit, enough to easily expose the fruit. Use a sharp knife. Then use the knife to cut away the peel from the grapefruit, following the contours of the fruit. Keep cutting away the peel until the grapefruit is completely peeled.
Use the knife to cut alongside the membranes that separate the grapefruit segments.
Remove the segments by either cutting the segments away from the membranes, or by gently pulling the segment out after you’ve made a cut alongside one of the membranes.
Continue to work around the grapefruit until you’ve cut out or removed all of the segments, without their connective membranes.
3 Peel and slice the avocados. (See this useful guide.)
4 Assemble salad: Arrange slices of avocados and grapefruit segments on a plate on a bed of a few lettuce leaves. Spoon dressing over the salad.
