Pomegranate Bracelet Salad

Now, every year I get crazy excited seeing the boxes full of big, bright red pomegranates in the grocery stores. They are my fall and winter power fruits. The juicy little bursts of ruby pomegranate seeds are so pretty, I wish I could have them as jewelry. An edible jewelry, like this Pomegranate Bracelet Salad!

This salad blows me away each time. The flavors and colors make me want to cry happy tears. Kind of like the ones that almost came out of my eyes when I saw this salad awaiting me at the fridge. All I could think of is how many good things are in it, like chicken, vegetables and nuts all layered in the form of a beautiful bracelet covered with pomegranate.

Now, I won’t lie this pomegranate bracelet salad is a little TLC and definitely not practical for weeknight kind of salad. BUT. If you love pomegranates. If you love cooking. If you love entertaining and having one of the most beautiful centerpieces on your holiday table. And if you can find an hour here and there to get this all put together, you and I should probably talk.

And by talk, I mean eat this pomegranate bracelet salad together. ♡

Ingredients:

2 medium potatoes (roasted or boiled), grated

2 medium skinless, boneless cooked chicken breasts, chopped

1 cup roasted pecans, chopped

4 hard-boiled eggs, grated

1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped

2 medium beets, (roasted or boiled), grated

1 large pomegranate

1/3 cup mayonnaise

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pomegranate seeds or as I should call them arils taken straight from the pomegranate itself are so much better than the little containers you can get at the store. And a whole a lot more cheaper! Plus it’s really easy to do with the technique I am about to show you, which I find is the easiest, fastest and least messy way.

So, start by slicing just the very top of the pomegranate off. Now you should be able to see little white sections that run through the pomegranate. All you need to do is make cuts into those sections, but not too deep, just enough to cut through the thick pomegranate skin.

Then you just simply pull out the white core from the centre and pull pomegranate apart. Take out your beautiful seeds and set aside.

Time to make the bracelet!

Put a tall glass in the middle of a large serving platter. You will arrange the ingredients in layers on the plate around that glass, and remove the glass once the salad has been assembled. Begin layering the ingredients evenly on the plate in the following order. Sprinkle the layers with some salt and cover with about 1 tablespoon of mayo.

Potatoes. I really like my potatoes roasted for salads like this one. Roasted potatoes brings so much more flavor then watery boiled ones. I simply wrap them inside the aluminum foil with some bay leaves and a few peppercorns and roast until fork tender.

Layer the grated potatoes around the glass, sprinkle with some salt and cover with mayo.

Chicken. I used leftovers from rotisserie chicken. So much flavor, yum! But feel free to boil your own chicken breasts from scratch. I also combined it with a little onion, which was caramelized with butter to a golden perfection. Feel free to leave this step out, but I highly recommend it for FLAVOR!

Layer chicken over the potatoes and cover with mayo again.

Toasted pecans. In.

Hard boiled eggs. And mayo again.

Beets. Same situation as potatoes, better roasted than boiled. Then mayo, of course.

Now you can pull out the glass from the centre of the plate and proceed to the last layer of beautiful pomegranate ruby arils. If you have extra half an hour and you feel extra creative, you can arrange the seeds on the inside of the “bracelet” as well, but to avoid stress, don’t. Or do. I am leaving it up to you.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight before serving.

Wow your guests this holiday season with this beautiful and more importantly edible pomegranate bracelet salad!