Broccoli Salad
This is a wonderful raw version of the traditional broccoli salad with bacon and cheddar. Someone else deserves the credit for this recipe, but I can’t remember where I got it from. Sorry!
I am not a huge fan of onions, so I prefer to use only 1/4 cup, and add the onion to the dressing ingredients in the blender. I also sometimes throw the broccoli in the dehydrator for a while before I mix it with the other ingredients, just to soften it up a little.
Ingredients
- 5 cups broccoli, chopped
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
- ½ cup onion, chopped
- ½ cup raisins, soaked until soft
- DRESSING
- 1 cup cashews
- 3 tablespoons agave nectar
- 2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ cup water
Preparation
Blend the dressing ingredients until smooth. Then pour over the broccoli, onion, sunflower seeds and raisins. Mix well.
Comments
American Yogini writes: (March 13, 2007)
oh me too. Don’t love onions so I will do it the less-onion way. Will let you know how it comes out. Sounds so good.
Donna writes: (April 12, 2007)
This salad is so close to the fat laiden one it you had your eyes closed and tasted it you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Even my husband said “not bad” This one is a keeper.
jenergy writes: (June 12, 2007)
This is SO yummy! I made it for a potluck for a bunch of non-raw people and they scarfed it up. The only changes I made were processing the broccoli into teensy bits in my food processor, and I used pine nuts instead of sunflower seeds. Turned out delish. :o)
sssonya writes: (June 14, 2007)
oh my god, yum! i just finished eating this for lunch. soooo goood!
dave writes: (June 17, 2007)
Delicious! This salad was the star of my last dinner party. I’m making a double batch today!
Zoe writes: (June 20, 2007)
mmmmmm, gorgeous! I used pine nuts instead of cashews, yum yum
LittleMissMuffit writes: (June 21, 2007)
Oh so good!!! We had this for dinner and it is just as good as the “SAD” version. I like leftovers and there wasn’t much leftover :-( I soaked the cashews for 2 hours and I think I will add more water to the dressing next time…I like it a little runnier. Personal preference :-) Definitely a keeper recipe!!!
spankysraw writes: (July 07, 2007)
I am crying here, this is so wonderful, I don’t even know what to say. this was one of my favorite SAD recipes. thank you so much for this.
Ventri writes: (July 12, 2007)
Just made this for lunch today and Wow! it was great. Thanks.
sspence12 writes: (July 14, 2007)
This recipe is so delicious! Just as good as the one my mom makes but healthier. So glad I tried it!
jessicaxo writes: (August 17, 2007)
Thank goodness for this recipe, I have been so tired of basic mixed greens salads. This is what I needed to excite my tastebuds again.
MEALEARNER writes: (August 20, 2007)
WOW!!!!! People down under love it!!!! I put this salad together yesterday and all guests loved the taste. Mind you, I cheated a little and substituted the Onion with Spring Onion.
Chef son of mine tells me it needs refinement to uplift presentation. So… I have challenged him to assist modify this scrumptious concoction. Shall post the finished product soon as we are happy.
By the way… Shove the mix between 2 slices of high quality fibre bread. Makes the taste buds work….
rawbryan writes: (August 23, 2007)
If you want a RAW NACHO CHEESE sauce(in my RAW IN TEN MINUTES raw organic recipe book available for only $13 on Amazon.com) you can change the sauce by using Pine Nuts(Cashews has the highest MYCOTOXINS I don’t know why all the RAW people are using it!) with white mellow Hawaiian Cold Mountain Brand Organic miso, tumeric, olive oil and a little water blend until smooth, play with the tumeric/miso portion or use my recipe from the book and it is like a RAW Organic Cheddar Cheese sauce! For the “bacon” this is also from my book, marinate Dulse in olive oil it will become crispy like bacon, looks and tastes like it too! Enjoy, Bryan Au.
deegarry writes: (August 25, 2007)
I love broccoli and this recipe is going to be my favorite! I don’t know how I lived without this recipe!
andrealeduc writes: (August 28, 2007)
I will google it eventually, but what are mycotoxins?
Reba writes: (August 29, 2007)
No freakin’ way! This tastes EXACTLY like the SAD version my mom makes that I LOVE. I am so impressed what you can do with cashews. Who knew?
jaxjan writes: (September 06, 2007)
I tried this for dinner today and loved it! (I didn’t really expect to because my broccoli salads have always tasted bitter before) Thank you so much for posting the recipe!
cajcookie writes: (September 09, 2007)
I made this for me and my husband and we LOVED it! He said the dressing tasted somewhat like cesear dressing. So many things you could do with the dressing. Thanks for sharing!
greenpolkadot writes: (September 09, 2007)
This is sooooooo good! It was super easy and quick to make. I was nervous the cashew dressing wouldn’t blend well in my cheap little blender but it did! I used 1/2 cup of water instead of 1/4. I’m going to be making this on a regular basis! Thank you for posting this recipe!!!
RAWmen-noodles writes: (September 10, 2007)
This recipe is da bomb”. I was looking for something new for the sake of broccoli and this is it.This is excellent! You are a life saver! This makes it alot easier to stay raw.
Eden writes: (September 16, 2007)
Wow, this is good! I have to admit I was quite skeptical at first. I typically don’t mix vegetables with sweets, but there was so much hype I just had to try it. And I love it! You’ve officially saved the broccoli in my fridge!
Eden writes: (September 16, 2007)
By the way, I left out the onions ‘cause I didn’t have any. It’s still awesome though.
lstorz writes: (September 20, 2007)
WOW! I have never had bacon/cheddar broccoli salad, so I don’t know what this is supposed to imitate, but it was delicious!!! Especially the dressing!!! I will use the dressing for other salads. I made the broccoli salad w/o raisins, and it’s really great
-it’s so good, it tastes like dessert. :)kyla writes: (September 21, 2007)
sooooooooo yummy! i used pine nuts and sundried tomatoes, because i didn’t have cashews or raisins. deeeeeeeeeeeeeelish!!
odalys writes: (September 21, 2007)
OMG! I thought you guys were exaggerating about how it tastes like bacon… but it really does!!! THIS IS MY FAVORITE RECIPE NOW! Mmm, I also added some mustard greens MMM!!! Ok, I’ll stop!
berkshires raw writes: (October 09, 2007)
I didn’t care for the texture of the sunflower seeds just put into the bowl, so I processed them with the rest of the dressing with about a cup of water instead of just the 1/4 cup. This worked fantasticaly! It made the salad more creamy, Thanks for the great recipe.
Mothergoose9 writes: (October 20, 2007)
My husband has just been diagnosed with chondrosarcoma….a malignant growth in his trachea. The doctors want to perform a total laryngectomy…removing voice box, thyroid gland and he would permanently have to breathe through a hole in the base of his neck. So we have ‘goneraw’ to see if we can’t change this picture. We will reassess in 3 months…this is my very first raw food recipe (other than the usual salads) and it is going right into the ‘keeper’ file!!! We had it for supper and enjoyd it immensely!! Thanks!!
Mulberryrose writes: (October 22, 2007)
Mothergoose9, so sorry about your husband’s diagnosis but I agree with you to try a natural approach first. Have you checked out the Hallelujah Diet? hacres.com. They recommend 85% raw but mainly because they think most people wouldn’t be able to go the drastic 100% raw (I think that’s the reason.) Anyway…they have lots of testimonies on their website from people who have overcome all sorts of cancers using this diet. I’ve read that you should be careful about eating too much fat..even if it’s from raw seeds, nuts or avacados or “good” oils, etc. Best of luck on your diet. Oh, if you aren’t familiar with Dr. Douglas Graham, you might check him out also. Would love to hear from you again.
Mothergoose9 writes: (October 29, 2007)
Actually we are using the Hallelujah Diet as the basis for our diet overhaul. :) I see a friend of mine from another board joined this site as well….welcome “Kozina”!!
heathermarsbomb writes: (November 06, 2007)
I love this recipe, it is so yummy. I wish I had this as a kid, it would have made me eat more broccoli!!!
auriablue writes: (November 08, 2007)
Thank you so much for this recipe Crisyn!!!! I am very new to raw.. and I’m the only one in my house doing it….so when everyone was eating this up…I felt like slapping hands…LOL.
JoyceH writes: (November 11, 2007)
I just made this and it’s an A! My husband thought it was fabulous and wanted more! I dehydrated the broccoli for about 3 hours on 105 degrees first. I used 1/4 cup of onions in the salad and another 1/4 cup of onions in the dressing (blended up nicely and added a lovely flavor. I also used pine nuts in lieu of cashews (soaked for a few hours) I used a bit over a cup. YUM!!! Thanks for posting this!!!
Silentsiren writes: (November 19, 2007)
This is soooo goood and so easy. I have a dish to bring to thanksgiving now.
leafekat writes: (November 22, 2007)
This is great!!! We added cranberries and some chopped dates instead of rasins. This will be part of our TXH meal.
JoyceH writes: (November 24, 2007)
This was one of the dishes I brought to a SAD Thanksgiving meal and everyone loved it. Folks were asking what was in the sauce to make it taste so good! This is a great dish to impress those who’ve never heard of eating raw foods :-)
JoyceH writes: (November 24, 2007)
Add a bit more water and it becomes an amazing salad dressing. My husband has requested it for lunch again today.
radish_man writes: (November 27, 2007)
I made this last night for dinner!
I used dried goji berries in place of the sunflower seeds.
They came out looking a little like bacon bits.
justagirl writes: (November 27, 2007)
This looks incredible..I love broccoli…and cheese…from my olden days…mother goose, add the greens…the greens..the greens…they are incredibly healing..
Vegfean writes: (November 29, 2007)
I made this last night as a side to the carrot pecan burgers. Needless to say my mouth had a neverending orgasm. I will be making another batch tommorrow. This seems like a recipe that would stand a few days in the frige and could be feasted on all week. Thank you to whoever contributed this one. I love it!
Inaia writes: (December 05, 2007)
I just made this today and it was so delicious! I gave my Mom the recipe. She’s in Puerto Rico. It is one of the fist raw meals she’s ever made (she just went raw last week) and she’s totally in love with it as well.
mpop writes: (December 08, 2007)
amazing! thank you for the idea. I actually used pine nuts instead of the cashwes and I made a different sauce with turmenic and miso and nutritional yeast. It came out so good! I will bring this to the raw potluck I am going to tonight. I think it will be a hit!
Kristen writes: (December 13, 2007)
Excellent, yummy, I’m still thinking about it an hour after dinner. My boyfriend (an open minded meat eater) LOVED it. I can’t wait to make it for friends.
leafekat writes: (December 22, 2007)
We had this for thanksgiving and we are having it for our winter holiday meal. we added cranberries to make it holiday-ey. This is really good.
steamboatkatie writes: (December 28, 2007)
I made this tonight for my boyfriend and he went crazy over it. This is better then the broccoli salad I had when I was younger. I think this is my new favorite recipe! Thanks for posting!
ilovesnowie writes: (January 04, 2008)
I just made this for dinner tonight, boy it’s delish! I never cared for broccoli but this is definitely a keeper!
babycat writes: (January 07, 2008)
Holy wow….this is better than the SAD version. Now I used onions because I like ‘em. I also used sea salt with dulse and kelp in the dressing. Added more water because the dressing was too thick but by the gods it tasted like mayo and bacon pretty insanely yummers.
keedge writes: (January 07, 2008)
Now that is a very good broccoli salad. I could not find the Agave Nectar in our local grocery store (I have not tried the health food stores which I assume will have it), but I had some mango nectar so I used that. As for the onions, I used a sweet onion and it was not strong at all. It was still really good. I had my step dad take some to my mom to get her opinion….. now I will be making a big batch for our family get together next weekend.
seize writes: (January 08, 2008)
Wow! I made this a couple of nights ago and it barely lasted two days! In fact I’m impressed it lasted that long. My roommate whom is a very close friend of mine gets more and more intrigued every time he tastes a new recipe – and this guy is a pasta/pizza/sweet fanatic! But now I think this salad has converted him; he’s asking me to help him go raw and to share my always growing knowledge about raw foods! Awesome – kudos to a wonderful recipe! :)
Amuzon1 writes: (January 09, 2008)
I made this tonight and it was very good! My husband and I enjoy the non-raw version and we both really liked this alternative. I did add a bit more water to the sauce so it wasn’t as thick to ensure full coverage over the other ingredients.
Nini writes: (January 13, 2008)
This is wonderful! I added a very small amount of shredded sweet potato to it, and it looks like cheddar cheese is in it! (Which is how my mother made it when I was young.)
lovingraw writes: (January 14, 2008)
wow! looks like I’m the 50th person to comment! Fabulous recipe, one I had been during for, I added some curry powder and a little vinegar to add another layer of flavor :)
erica_michelle_p writes: (January 15, 2008)
I am going to make this tomorrow. YUM looks so good!
b_flat writes: (January 15, 2008)
I made this today. I added some cayenne to the dressing, and cut down on the onion. It was really good. I think I’ll try something other than raisins next time.
erica_michelle_p writes: (January 16, 2008)
So I made it and it rocks!! Very filling and lots of flavor. A+++++ Thank you
brenilou writes: (January 20, 2008)
OK so enough have posted to leave little doubt this is great. But I still have to say thanks Crisyn, because you saved my butt all summer long. We traveled to various family for several weeks and I made this over and over. Every time, it was not only loved but generally commented that, other versions were not liked but “mine” was fabulous! I used a couple of dates instead of agave and because my BIL insisted he could not eat raw onions, I chopped those with the broc stems in the food processor and then tossed with lemon juice. That breaks them down and he ate tons of this and never once complained about the raw onions because they didn’t taste raw! I never could get the SAD version to taste right anyway, so thanks a million times over for this one.
carrie6292 writes: (January 21, 2008)
This is great! I used pine nuts and sunflower seeds instead of the cashews and I didn’t use raisins (just don’t lie them), but i think some cranberries would be awesome in it (i just didn’t have any)... For those that like that old Carrot/Raisin salad, the same dressing would be great on that too!!!! Thanks again!
Hippie Chick writes: (January 22, 2008)
Loved it! Thanks
Hippie Chick writes: (January 22, 2008)
Loved it! Thanks
envirogenny writes: (January 24, 2008)
the best salad ever, i will be bringing it to a work potluck on Friday, I’m sure they will like it.
ObLaDi writes: (January 24, 2008)
Now that I’ve tried this, I see why it is so popular.
A few alterations: I didn’t use onions (currently have none), pepitas instead of sunflower seeds, and dried cranberries instead of raisins.
Next time, I think I will make the dressing with a little more water to get it to “pour”. But, when I mixed it in with the salad, it distributed well.
So tasty!
batyah writes: (January 25, 2008)
I made this last night…it is amazingly good. I love onions, but will use a little less next time, and will probably add some shredded carrots. Thank you a million times…
Anne writes: (January 29, 2008)
I had never before in my life tried a brocolli salad, and I had always known raw brocolli to be bitter. But this salad was very sweet and really filled me up quickly! I also used pine nuts instead of cashews.
shgadwa writes: (January 30, 2008)
Based upon other people’s reviews on this recipe, I want to bring it to a potluck but I ahve not yet made it for myself. How much does this make?? There will be other families there, probably 40 in all and everyone brings a meal. Most all of them are cooked and not vegan and so that I do not ahve to look weird by bringing my own small salad, I am going to start bringing meals for everyone. Should I jsut make two batches?? At any rate, I gotta give this a try. Maybe I can try it out before then.
RawVoice writes: (February 03, 2008)
My SAD husband liked this. That’s a big victory. I haven’t tried it yet because I’m on the master cleanse, but I can’t wait!
Allison writes: (February 05, 2008)
This was great.I used macadamia nuts because I didn’t have any cashews. Came out awesome.
rawmama writes: (February 15, 2008)
When people use cranberries, do you use whole, undehydrated cranberries or something like craisins??? And are raisins and craisins really raw? Just a question…also wondered about currants being raw? Thanks, want to make this tonight! :)
heartshapedsky writes: (February 26, 2008)
love this. made it twice, ate it all myself both times!
Serah writes: (March 08, 2008)
I make this ALL THE TIME!! I absolutely love it!! The only thing I do differently is add some sprouted: adzuki beans, garbanzo beans, green peas, and lentils. Amazing! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
verytomato writes: (March 09, 2008)
This is one of my favorites. I leave out the onion and halve the agave, and add a dash of nama shoyu and olive oil. The dressing is good on everything.
Winona writes: (March 10, 2008)
This recipe is supreme! I recommend using sweet white onions so that the flavors blend better.
lynzeymarie writes: (March 17, 2008)
I just bought all of the ingredients today to make this. Very nice, but think it would have been better with less vinegar and maybe more water. Thanks for sharing!
happyvegan writes: (March 24, 2008)
i just made this for a road trip and i used almonds instead of cashews and pepitas instead of sunflower seeds. YUM! also, i used only 1 tbsp vinegar and less onion (onion went in the dressing). it’s fabulous! thank you!
happyvegan writes: (March 24, 2008)
oh, and i also food processed the broccoli! delish!
double_libra writes: (April 30, 2008)
Oh man, I totally thought people here were being overly enthusiastic about how awesome this salad really is. The dressing tastes so amazing, it is totally yummy and I’m sure many people still on the SAD diet would love it, too. Side note: I used almonds instead of cashews, and used pine nuts instead of sunflower seeds and it was totally fabulous. A+++
Joydrop313 writes: (June 08, 2008)
This was the best broccoli salad I have ever had!!! I just started raw food (2 weeks now) and have come across some not so great stuff and started wondering if this was for me! Then I tried this recipe and it changed my mind and got me thinking I can do this and enjoy what I eat!! I substituted the cashews for almonds and sunflower seeds for pine nuts since that is what I had on hand and it was amazing!!
shani76 writes: (June 11, 2008)
oh my goodness – this is fantastic! i’m new to raw food and this site has been great for searching for recipes for a particular veggie or fruit i have in the house. this was SUCH a good way to use up my broccoli – delicious! i added water to get a thicker dressing and made the broccoli into teeny bits. thank you thank you!
www.highrawlife.com writes: (August 12, 2008)
Everyone I’ve made this for has LOVED it! Perfect picnic salad too. Thanks for posting!
morning writes: (August 20, 2008)
this is absolutely fabulous…thank you
lebraw writes: (September 01, 2008)
sooooo good! thank you
Log in to discuss this recipe. No account yet? Sign up here.