Healthy Broccoli Salad (Without Bacon)

Ready in just 30 minutes, this healthy broccoli salad is an easy and light side dish loaded with flavor. Filled with nourishing ingredients like cranberries, smoky almonds, and a yogurt dressing, it’s the perfect potluck dish for your guests to rave about!

Everyone loves a good, classic, cold broccoli salad. Your grandma likely has a secret recipe that’s been passed down. Often, this is filled with a heavy mayo-based dressing, loads of bacon, and shredded cheddar cheese.

But what if we have the same bold flavors, just with healthier and vegetarian ingredients? With smoky almonds to mimic bacon and some sweet dried cranberries, it’s basically summer sunshine in a bowl!

here’s what you’ll need

These are mainly ingredients you likely already have on hand in the pantry. You’ll just need to pick up some broccoli and red onions! Jump to the recipe card for exact measurements and substitutions.

• Almonds: toasted together with liquid smoke and soy sauce to make a faux bacon-flavored crunch.
• Broccoli: Yup, we use whole broccoli here, stems and all.
• Dried Cranberries: This little pop of sweetness is the perfect finishing touch. It’s also a great chewy texture to add.
• Red Onion: Lots of bites here and color. I love how it shines through the dressing!
• Dressing: Wrapped it all together with a dressing made with mayo and yogurt, it gets the perfect balance of tang and sweetness from apple cider vinegar, sugar, and a bit of salt. Be sure to use plain, runny yogurt and not Greek yogurt!
• “Bacon” Almonds: These are just almonds tossed in liquid smoke, maple syrup, soy sauce, olive oil, smoked paprika, and salt.

Let’s do this

There’s a decent amount of chopping to be done here, but you can easily work on it while the oven preheats and the almonds bake and cool. This is an overview of the recipe. Jump to the recipe for the full printable instructions.

Step 1: Make the Almonds
Preheat the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment. Stir up the marinade and then pour it over plain almonds and toss. Spread out and bake for just 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Step 2: Make the Dressing
It may seem like there’s a lot of dressing, but the creamy tang can’t be beat and we want it to thoroughly coat every piece of the salad. Some simple seasonings are added to yogurt and mayo to achieve the perfect flavor balance.

Step 3: Make the Salad
Next up – the chopping! You can see how I made the stem pieces quite small compared to the florets. This makes them easier to chew and lets you use up all parts of the plant. No waste here.

Add the remaining salad ingredients to the bowl. Make sure it’s a pretty large bowl so you can easily combine everything.

Toss with the dressing until everything is evenly coated. You can serve right away or set it back in the fridge to chill until party time.

Best Summer Dishes

This vegetarian broccoli salad is so easy to make ahead, leaving you lots of time to fire up the grill when guests arrive so you can enjoy some hot dishes.

• Portobello Mushroom Burgers are an amazing and hearty main dish that will look beautiful next to a large scoop!
• Watermelon Berry Fruit Salad will offer your fruit next to the veg and perfectly round out your party spread.