Kohlrabi and celery salad {walnuts + garlic aioli}

Kohlrabi and celery salad – made with toasted walnuts, and homemade garlic aioli, this simple salad is extra crunchy, delicious and super nutritious, light on calories too!

This simple salad features a little-known winter veggie – the kohlrabi.

I have vague memories eating raw kohlrabi as a kid – I remember my mom making a salad of grated turnips and kohlrabi during winter months, or giving me kohlrabi slices to munch on.  I had completely forgotten about its existence until a couple of years ago.  I did not recognize it when I saw its bulbous form at the local market, and curious to experiment with something new, I bought a few kohlrabies.  Much later, it occurred to me to look up the word in the dictionary for its translation, and I was excited to rediscover this long-forgotten gem of a vegetable from my childhood!

If you haven’t had kohlrabi, think of it as cabbage’s second cousin.  Its taste is reminiscent of cabbage, only it’s sweeter and without the peppery notes.  It has a crisp, juicy flesh, and the texture of a radish, which makes it great for raw salads.   When cooked, its sweetness comes forward even more.  Sometimes kohlrabi is sold with the leaves attached, so take advantage and cook them as you would cook beet greens, or chard.

The kohlrabi is nutrient-rich like all its cruciferous relatives – great source of vitamin C, and cancer-fighting phytochemicals.   It has almost no calories and tons of fiber – can’t beat that especially if you are watching your weight.  It has a tough skin, and another woodsy layer beneath, so make sure you cut away until you reach the tender inside.
In this recipe I combined it with celery (another, almost zero-calorie vegetable), and a big handful of toasted walnuts; mixed it all with some homemade garlic aioli sauce, and the result was an extra crunchy, super yummy, toothsome salad.

Making your own garlic aioli is easy – quite similar to making mayonnaise.  Traditionally, aioli is made by mixing just garlic and olive oil, but to get a creamier sauce, egg yolk can be added.  I like to substitute some of the olive oil with avocado oil to get a milder tasting sauce but if you have light olive oil, you can use only that.  You will get roughly a cup of sauce, which is more than you need to dress the salad.  Use the leftover aioli to spread on toasts, or serve as a dipping sauce for raw veggies.

If you don’t feel like making your own aioli, you can use store-bought mayonnaise mixed with lemon juice in equal parts, and crushed garlic. One warning here though – good quality mayonnaise makes all the difference!  By good quality, I mean it should not have any sugar added (and possibly no canola oil).  Sugar completely ruins the taste of mayo in my opinion, and in this salad it would be a disaster.  If I don’t have time to make my own mayonnaise I usually buy the one from Trader Joe’s which is sugar free.

The first time I made the salad, I grated the kohlrabi, but did not drain the juices and ended up with a soggy salad. Dicing the kohlrabi into small pieces fixes the problem – it retains all that good juice and it doesn’t water the dressing.  You want a nice and compact, creamy salad.

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Kohlrabi and celery salad {walnuts + garlic aioli}

Prep Time

20 mins

Total Time

20 mins

 

Kohlrabi and celery salad - made with toasted walnuts, and homemade garlic aioli, this simple salad is extra crunchy, delicious and super nutritious, light on calories too!

Course: Salad

Servings: 4

Calories: 162 kcal

Author: Viktoria

Ingredients

For the salad:

• 3 medium kohlrabies
• 6-7 celery stalks
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 3-4 Tbs garlic aioli (recipe follows)

For the garlic aioli sauce:

• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup avocado oil or grapeseed oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Make the garlic aioli:

1. In a mortar and pestle mash the garlic cloves with the salt until you get a smooth paste.

2. Add the egg yolk and lemon juice, and mix well.
3. Start adding the oil drop by drop, while whisking all the time. As the sauce begins to thicken, continue to add the oil in a thin stream until all is incorporated. It should be a little less thick than mayonnaise. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Make the salad:

1. Chop the kohlrabi and celery into small dice.
   

2. Toast the walnuts for 10 minutes at 300 °F.

3. Assemble the salad by combining the celery, kohlrabi, walnuts and a few tablespoons of the garlic aioli sauce. Garnish with celery leaves.

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