Cinnamon-Spiced Squash Salad and Shallot Apple Vinaigrette

A show-stopping salad that takes less than an hour and is nearly impossible to mess up

Nov 16, 2023

∙ Paid

On Thanksgiving of 1997, my sister, mother and I were sitting by the fire in the family room, peeling potatoes while my dad worked across the room on the turkey. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was on as it is each Thanksgiving, a family tradition.

The kitchen and family room of my parents’ house is one big room; they had an open floor plan before it was cool, I guess. It’s one of my favorite aspects of their house; we’re just always in that room. Everything happens there.

Next to the fireplace are glass French doors that open up to the backyard: a quaint yard that holds a small herb garden, some holly, climbing hydrangea, a playhouse (now gone) and an old birch tree (also, sadly, now gone). I’m from a coastal suburban Connecticut town, where lots of wildlife roams.

I’m not sure how much of a help I was, peeling potatoes at age 7, but my parents taught us early that we had to “work for our food”. It was always one of my favorite activities, sitting by the fire on Thanksgiving morning, peeling potatoes for mashed potatoes and apples for pie.

My mom gazed across the dewy backyard, peering through the glass doors, when she screamed, “A TURKEY!!!!!!”

A large turkey, roughly the size of a yellow lab, was roaming through our backyard. He had a fanned tail and a large, gangly red throat thing (which I now know is called a wattle). My mother, sister, and I were terrified. My dad, always the calm one, went outside to look closer.

We followed him dutifully into the wet November morning.

The turkey was so large, it was having trouble flying over the fence. My father helped it over the fence to its freedom, wiping his hands on his pants and heading back inside to finish basting…a not-so-alive turkey.

It was a Thanksgiving I’ll never forget.

This crunchy, nutty, spicy, sweet, salty, and acidic salad is my go-to recipe for the Thanksgiving holiday. It has 22,000 likes on Instagram, and I’ve made it year after year for Thanksgiving, which is celebrated each year with my family in that same house in Connecticut.

The best thing about this salad is that it can be made ahead of time and the flavors won’t be compromised (just be sure to wait until mealtime to dress the salad).

Each year, the kitchen on Thanksgiving is a high-traffic, high-stress area. My father, the family cook, handles the turkey, stuffing, and gravy, while my mother does the mashed potatoes and two pies (yay for shared household chores and my parents modeling visible labor on Thanksgiving!).

We’re only working with one oven/stovetop with multiple dishes to make. My parents usually always ask that I either prep my dish ahead of time or make it in Brooklyn to bring to Connecticut.

Enter: this salad.

It’s versatile, too. You can add forbidden rice or wheat berries to make it heartier, or omit the addition of a grain altogether.

This year, the only fruit I’m using in the salad itself are pomegranate seeds, but I’ve been known to throw a few good chopped McIntosh apples on top some years when I feel like it.

It goes great piled on a plate and mixed with bites of the main characters, like the turkey and stuffing. It’s because the dressing—oh my god, the dressing!—is acidic and cuts through the rich flavors of the gravy and stuffing. The dressing’s key ingredient lies in the use of tart apple cider vinegar, which rounds out the sweet, spicy, and salty flavors to create an irresistible and anything-but-boring-salad.

Truthfully, there’s also no real way to mess up a salad, especially this one. As you make it, don’t worry too much about the amounts of spices and oils—let your intuition guide you, and taste as you go.

Good luck out there in the kitchen, folks. And may you find your own Thanksgiving turkey in the wild.