Rainbow Salad with Honey Tahini Dressing

This Rainbow Salad with an easy homemade dressing tastes as good as it looks. Veggies in every color? Yes please!

Making A Veggie Rainbow

Pull together your favorite veggies, one for every color of the rainbow. In my recipe I’ve used a combination of roasted sweet potato, roasted beets, yellow and red tomatoes, blueberries, purple/red cabbage, thinly sliced radishes, and kale.

If you’re roasting the beets and sweet potatoes the same day you’re making the salad, chill them or at least bring them to room temperature before adding to the salad so that all of the ingredients are roughly the same temperature. This will prevent anything from wilting. You could also used canned beets if you don’t want to roast the beets yourself. (It’s easy to roast beets in the oven or to make Instant Pot Beets though!)

Kale, although super healthy, can be tough to chew and digest. To help with this, squeeze the kale leaves in your hands, rub them together, and give the kale a literal massage. Doing this will break some of the fibrous cell walls, which will make the kale more tender and easier to digest.

Not a fan of kale? Substitute spinach or your favorite salad greens mix.

Homemade Honey Tahini Dressing

To make the dressing, whisk together the honey, olive oil, vinegar, orange juice, tahini, garlic, shallot, cumin, and salt in a medium bowl, then set this aside. Want to keep this vegan? Substitute agave syrup for the honey.

The salad dressing can be made a day or two ahead of time, too. It is equally good used as a sandwich spread, a dip for homemade chicken or vegetable nuggets, a dressing or dip for vegetables, or a glaze for baked chicken and fish. The recipe will make about a half cup, and it can be easily doubled.

What Is Tahini, Anyways?

Tahini is just like almond butter or sun nut butter, but with sesame seeds instead. It’s often sold in the ethnic food aisle in the grocery store, or sometimes with the other nut butters. Look for a brand that offers roasted and ground sesame for the best flavor. Like other natural nut and seed butters, the oil and ground seed will have separated after being packaged. You’ll want to give the tahini a good stir before using so that the oil and ground seed are thoroughly mixed.

Making And Serving Rainbow Salad

To make the salad, add the massaged kale to a large bowl, and then arrange the vegetables in small piles in the following order to make a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, blue, purple): red tomato, sweet potato, yellow tomato, blueberries, cabbage, beets, radishes. This also looks pretty when laid out in rows like a chopped salad. 

Sprinkle chopped walnuts or pecans over the top of the salad and drizzle a little of the dressing over everything. Serve immediately with more dressing on the side.

Make this a complete meal by adding grilled chicken, shrimp, black beans, or chickpeas.

More Tasty Salad Recipes:

• Quinoa Salad Bowl
• Southwestern Steak Salad
• Grilled Chicken Salad
• Beet Salad with Goat Cheese
• Picnic Fried Chicken Salad

I hope you love all the great salad recipes I have for you. Make sure to leave me a comment and let me know how you like it. – Christine xo

This post originally appeared in June 2022 and was revised and republished in May 2023.