Transform Your Favorite Winter Salad into a Festive Holiday Wreath

Bring some holiday cheer to your favorite winter salad by transforming it into a gorgeous wreath. If you love the charcuterie wreath trend this year, then you’ll want to ditch your salad bowl, too. Get ready to impress your holiday guests with this effortless salad wreath. 

How to Make Your Own Salad Wreath

Before you begin making your wreath, you’ll want to prep your salad ingredients so that they’re ready to arrange. Choose salad ingredients that are easy to layer—you don’t want to overload your serving tray, since this will make it too difficult to keep your ingredients in a wreath shape. A Caprese salad or Greek salad with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and balsamic is easy to put together. You can also utilize winter salad ingredients like butternut squash, pomegranate, pear, cranberries, pecans, or pine nuts. 

Dress Up Your Tray

Start by grabbing a circular serving tray and spreading some dressing around the base. It’s best if you opt for a thick salad dressing here, as you don’t want it to slide around; your goal is to leave the center of the serving tray clear so you can form your salad into a beautiful wreath shape. Utilize condiments like pesto or hummus for the base of your salad wreath, or opt to use ingredients to shape your base, like spreadable cheese, smashed avocado, or Dijon mustard.

Spreading a dressing base around your serving tray will help your other ingredients stick to the tray, so that they don’t move around. This is essential for when you’re building your salad into a particular shape—otherwise you risk leaves toppling over and ruining your wreath.

Lay Down Greenery

After you’ve outlined your wreath with your spreadable ingredients, add a base of leaves. Any salad leaf will work here; you might opt for arugula, spinach, kale, or spring mix. A base of greens that look like actual leaves will help you create the illusion of a holiday wreath more effectively—while you can certainly use cubed lettuces such as Romaine, for example, greens like arugula or kale have leaf shapes that are more reminiscent of wreaths that use real greenery.

Add Fixings

Finally, it’s time to add the rest of your ingredients. There are so many fun ways you can make your holiday wreath come to life; cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and purple grapes look like little baubles. You can cut your soft cheeses, pears, squashes, and vegetables (like carrots or cucumbers) into fun shapes to mimic ornaments. Think stars, flowers, candy canes, gingerbread people, or snowflakes.

Tips for Making Your Salad Wreath Pop

To help you form a perfect circle, you can try adding a small bowl or glass to the center of your wreath, placing it upside down on the tray. Arrange your spreads and salad ingredients around your bowl, and lift it up only at the end, once your ingredients are set. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds or nuts around the wreath to add a festive touch—crumbled cheeses make for fantastic faux snow to finish off your wreath’s decor.

Then, it’s time to finish dressing your salad; drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the entire wreath (if you’re transporting it to a holiday party, save this step for when you arrive so that it doesn’t get soggy). Once your salad wreath is arranged, carefully lift the bowl from the center of the tray. Push any stray salad leaves or ingredients back in place, and your festive salad is ready to serve. You can also fill the center of the wreath with a bowl of dipping sauce or extra dressing if you prefer.