BBQ lamb with warm broccoli salad

Broccoli salad recipe

If you’ve never had roasted broccoli before, this recipe for broccoli salad is about to change your life. Broccoli is a vegetable that many people grew up with, and depending on who cooked in your house, it may not be a veggie that’s exciting to you. Broccoli is just broccoli, right? It’s a reliable and affordable veggie that’s good for you. But is there really a way to prepare it so that you start seeking it out and craving it? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’! Introducing the best broccoli salad recipe, which teaches you all you need to know about how to make broccoli great again. Spoiler alert, it involves 4 key steps: roast the broccoli, add something crunchy, add something acidic, and add something salty.

Preparing the broccoli for this easy broccoli salad

When buying broccoli, choose ones that have thinner stalks and florets that are tightly packed together and dark green all over.

To roast them, preheat the oven first to 180°C so that the broccoli goes into a hot oven. Rinse the broccoli and dry with paper towel. Make sure to dry thoroughly so that the broccoli doesn’t end up steaming in the oven. The drier the broccoli, the crispier it will be.

Chop the broccoli into florets of any size, according to your preference. The most important thing is to make sure the florets are all the same size, so that they are done roasting at the same time. Lightly coat the florets with oil, season with salt, and spread them evenly on a baking pan. If they are clumped together, it will end up being steamed instead of roasted.

Jazzing up your roasted broccoli salad

So you’ve roasted the broccoli, and now it’s time to add something crunchy, something acidic and something salty to your warm broccoli salad. In this recipe, sunflower seeds, pepitas, feta cheese and red wine vinegar bring these complementary textures and flavours to the salad.

You can change it up by using other ingredients that fit into these categories. Instead of seeds, mix in roasted nuts like pistachio, pine nuts, macadamia, slivered almonds, cashews or hazelnuts. For the salty kick, use crispy bacon or parmesan. To cut through the rich flavours with acidity, squeeze in some lemon juice or drizzle some balsamic vinegar.

If you enjoy meat and want to turn this salad into a meal on its own, follow the recipe’s instructions to add some sliced chargrilled lamb.

Now get cooking

This broccoli salad with BBQ lamb is a host’s dream. It only takes 25 minutes to make and is super tasty. Throw this together for a barbecue or dinner party this summer and win over your guests instantly. Have you fallen in love with this humble vege? Extend beyond broccoli salad recipes with broc tots, cheesy broccoli and bacon bake and broccoli and pea pesto agnolotti. Or check out these recipes for broccoli’s close cousin, the baby broccoli: quick baby broccoli pasta carbonara, BBQ baby broccoli with blue cheese creme fraiche and Sabrina Frederick’s roasted baby broccoli rigatoni. For more crowd-winning salads, head over to our best spring salads collection.