Broccoli Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

No more boring broccoli! This Broccoli Salad is dressed with a gorgeous Sour Cream Dressing that is tangy, creamy and made WITHOUT mayonnaise. Throw in nuttiness from almonds, freshness from shallots / scallions and a few bacon bits, and you have yourself a salad that is so good, it’s worth of a meal in itself!

This broccoli recipe is a lighter version of classic Broccoli Salad with a creamy dressing. Try this on the side of Baked Pork Chops, sticky Baked Chicken Thighs, marinated beef Steaks or crispy Pan Fried Fish with Lemon Butter Sauce!

Broccoli Salad

I’m keeping this post short and sweet because it’s an extra recipe, a side dish for these Oven Baked Pork Chops I also shared today. 🙂

When you think of creamy salad dressings, you automatically think of mayonnaise. Don’t get me wrong – I love my mayonnaise dressings. My friend’s mother’s Epic Potato Salad is simply the best I have ever had – EVER – and you could never go skinny on that mayonnaise dressing.

However, for everyday purposes, I try to avoid using too much mayonnaise in dressings.

So this Sour Cream Dressing is one of my “everyday” creamy dressing. Looks fab, no? 😉

I make all sorts of variations of this Broccoli Salad. This one I’m sharing today is a fairly classic version that I make often because I always have some sort of nuts in the pantry and I always have scallions (it’s my Asian genes). Though I must admit that bacon doesn’t make an appearance all the time! It’s a treat. 🙂

Even if you served this with just broccoli and the dressing, it’s a really lovely way to change up plain steamed broccoli on the dinner plate. 🙂 Here it is as a side to the Oven Baked Pork Chops I also shared today.

Key tip for making broccoli salads – drain the broccoli well! The heads of the broccoli are water catchers and the last thing you want is to take a bite of broccoli, expecting creamy dressing only to find you end up with a mouthful of watery dressing! So leave the broccoli in the colander to drain well, shaking occasionally to get it as dry as possible.

NO MORE BORING BROCCOLI! Who’s with me??! – Nagi x

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Broccoli Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats

Prep: 15 mins

Cook: 3 mins

Total: 18 mins

Salad

5 from 18 votes

Servings4

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No more boring broccoli! The star of this is the Sour Cream Dressing - creamy and tangy, but made without mayonnaise! The almonds add creamy nuttiness, the shallots add pops of freshness and the bacon....well, we all know bacon makes EVERYTHING better! Use this recipe as a base and add your favourite salad toppings.

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 large or 2 small heads of broccoli
• ▢ 150 g / 5 oz lean bacon, chopped
• ▢ 1/4 cup flaked almonds, or other nuts of choice
• ▢ 2 shallots / scallions, or red onion, finely chopped

Sour Cream Dressing

• ▢ 1/3 cup sour cream (I use low fat)
• ▢ 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ▢ 1/4 tsp garlic powder, or 1/2 small garlic clove, minced
• ▢ 2 tsp apple cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar
• ▢ 2 - 3 tbsp milk, plus more to adjust consistency
• ▢ 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• ▢ 3/4 tsp white sugar
• ▢ Salt and pepper

Instructions

• Mix the Sour Cream Dressing ingredients together in a bowl. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. and set aside for 20 minutes for the flavours to develop. Use milk to adjust dressing to desired consistency.
• Break / cut broccoli into smallish florets. Blanch in boiling water or steam until just cooked - it should still be tender but crisp. Drain in a colander, run under tap water to help cool faster and leave to cool. Shake around in colander occasionally to loosen water caught in the floret heads (watery broccoli salad not nice!).
• Toast almonds in non stick skillet over medium high heat until golden. Remove into bowl.
• Cook bacon in skillet over high heat until golden. Drain on paper towels.
• Place salad ingredients in a bowl. Drizzle over dressing and toss to combine. Transfer to serving bowl.
• I served this with Oven Baked Pork Chops.

Recipe Notes:

1. I prefer making this with garlic powder because it's milder and smoother than fresh garlic. But fresh garlic works just fine too, just let the dressing rest for at least 30 minutes.

2. The sour cream can be substituted with yoghurt but you need to use a full fat creamy yoghurt otherwise I find the dressing is too tangy. The alternative is to add more olive oil to get more creaminess into the dressing.

3. Nutrition per serving.

Nutrition Information:

Serving: 170gCalories: 180cal (9%)Carbohydrates: 10g (3%)Protein: 11.7g (23%)Fat: 10.7g (16%)Saturated Fat: 2.4g (15%)Polyunsaturated Fat: 8.3gCholesterol: 29mg (10%)Sodium: 346mg (15%)Fiber: 3.5g (15%)Sugar: 3.2g (4%)

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Broccoli Salad with Sour Cream Dressing nutrition per serving.

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