Turkey Salad RECIPE

Got an abundance of turkey leftover from Thanksgiving dinner? Tired of reheated dinners and turkey sandwiches?

No problem. Here's a suggestion from Howdini on how to make turkey salad with celery root and apple

Chef Amy Topel, the food columnist for National Geographic's The Green Guide, shares an easy recipe and shows us how to make a simple organic chopped turkey salad, without mayonnaise!


Ingredients

½ cup strained low-fat yogurt

1 tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard

1 large celery root, chopped into thin julienne (about 3 cups)

2 tart green apples, pelled and chopped into thin julienne

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 small fennel bulb, cored and chopped into thin julienne (about ½ cup)

1 small red onion, sliced into thin strips (about 1/3 cup)

½ dried cranberries

½ cup walnuts, toasted

¼ cup fresh parsley leaves

2 cups sliced cooked turkey

Salt and pepper to taste.

DIRECTIONS

Chef Amy Topel's simple chopped turkey salad recipe -- serves 10-12.

(1) Combine the strained low-fat yogurt and the grainy Dijon mustard and set aside. (To strain the yogurt, take regular low-fat plain yogurt and set it in a strainer lined with coffee filters. Let it sit for about three hours to get most of the liquid out, thicken up, and concentrate its tanginess. If you choose, you may be able to find strained low-fat yogurt in the store.)

(2) Peel the celery root. Using a chef’s knife, cut off the outside, removing the brown exterior. You've removed enough when the celery root looks nice and smooth and moist. When you get to the bottom -- where the roots grow -- you have to take off significantly more. Keep trimming until all of the brown exterior is removed.

(3) Cut peeled celery root in half, and using a mandolin, chop it into very thin slices. (Mandolins are available at a lot of cooking stores. It’s referred to as a Japanese mandolin and it makes a lot of cutting jobs much easier. Be sure to use the finger guard, as the blade is very sharp.)

(4) Cut the slices into a thin julienne using your chef's knife and place in a large mixing bowl.

(5) Add one green apple that also been cut into a thin julienne, and then one tablespoon of lemon juice over the celery root and apple. Mix that together with your hands just to keep the celery root and apple from turning brown. (They will start to oxidize -- turn brown -- if they sit out too long. So complete this step right before you’re going to serve the salad.)

(6) Combine the rest of the ingredients -- thinly sliced fennel, thinly sliced red onion, dried cranberries, toasted walnut pieces and fresh parsley leaves. Note: Leave the parsley leaves whole as they look much prettier that way and really dress up the salad.

(7) Add the yogurt and mustard mixture and quickly stir all together. You may find it easier to mix this with your hands.

(8) Add a little bit of salt to taste and some black pepper when the ingredients are mixed and really well combined.

(9) Add the turkey and just give it a few turns. At this stage you may definitely find it easier to use your hands. (You add the turkey at this stage because if you added it earlier, and then tried to mix all the ingredients together, you might end up breaking the turkey into small pieces, which you don’t want.)

(10) Let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes so that the flavors can meld. (You want to think of this salad the way you think of coleslaw — it really benefits from hanging around in the refrigerator for a while!)

Unlike other turkey salad recipes, this easy recipe is made without additional calories from mayonnaise and made tasty by Chef Amy Topel's use of organic celery root, cranberries, and apples. Enjoy!