Recipes › Celery › Celery, Walnut and Date Salad with Tahini Dressing
Celery, Walnut and Date Salad with Tahini Dressing
A Middle Eastern-inspired salad that takes celery completely seriously — sliced thinly on the diagonal so every bite is crisp and full of flavour, then matched with sweet Medjool dates and bitter walnuts. The tahini dressing, sharpened with lemon and a little garlic, pulls everything together into something that feels both light and deeply satisfying. Ready in under 25 minutes and entirely the right thing to eat alongside lamb or roast chicken.
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Ingredients
- 600 g celery, trimmed, thinly sliced on the diagonal, leaves reserved
- 120 g Medjool dates, stones removed, roughly tornor use dried apricots, chopped
- 80 g walnut halves
- 20 g flat-leaf parsley, leaves roughly picked
- 80 pomegranate seeds (optional)
- 60 g tahini, well stirred
- 2 lemon, juice only
- 1 cloves garlic, finely grated or crushed
- 60 ml cold water
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsp sumacomit if unavailable, or use a pinch of citric acid
Contains: nuts, celery, sesame.
Method
- Toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for 4–5 minutes, tossing regularly, until fragrant and lightly golden. Tip onto a plate and leave to cool. Once cool, break any very large pieces in half.About 5 min
- Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the tahini, lemon juice, garlic, cumin and half the salt. It will seize up and look thick — that is normal. Add the cold water a little at a time, whisking until you have a smooth, pourable dressing about the consistency of single cream. Taste and add more lemon or salt if needed.About 3 min
- Slice the celery stalks thinly on the diagonal — aim for pieces about 3–4mm thick. This gives you much more surface area and makes the salad look elegant. Put the sliced celery in a large bowl.About 8 min
- Add the torn dates, toasted walnuts, parsley leaves and the reserved celery leaves to the bowl. Drizzle over the olive oil and the remaining salt and toss gently.About 2 min
- Pour about two-thirds of the tahini dressing over the salad and toss again until everything is lightly coated. Taste — you may want more dressing, or you may want to hold some back if serving alongside other dishes.About 1 min
- Transfer to a serving plate or shallow bowl. Scatter over the pomegranate seeds if using, and finish with a dusting of sumac. Serve straight away — this salad is at its best when the celery is still properly crunchy.About 1 min
Tips
- Slicing the celery on the diagonal is not just aesthetic — it exposes more of the inner surface, which is milder and sweeter than the outer edge, and means the dressing clings better.
- If you make the tahini dressing in advance and it thickens in the fridge, just whisk in a tablespoon of cold water to loosen it back to the right consistency.
- The inner pale yellow stalks from the heart of the celery head are the best ones for this salad — save the tougher outer stalks for soups or stocks.
Ring the changes
- Swap the walnuts for toasted pumpkin seeds to make this nut-free — they give a similarly satisfying crunch.
- A crumbled 100g of feta stirred through at the end makes this more substantial — it won't be vegan, but the salty creaminess works beautifully with the tahini.
Keeping it
Best eaten immediately. If you need to prep ahead, keep the dressing separate and store the undressed salad components covered in the fridge for up to 4 hours. Dress just before serving.
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