Celery Salad Recipe (Fresh & Crunchy)

This simple celery salad recipe is crunchy, perfectly creamy, and genuinely hard to stop eating. It’s absolutely one of our favorite ways to use celery!

A while ago, we asked our readers what ingredients they usually keep in their fridge, and celery sat right at the top of the list. So, we set out to create some celery recipes to help use it all up. This celery salad recipe is my favorite so far.

The celery is crisp and fresh, the creamy dressing is tangy, and the peanuts and blue cheese make it a standout salad (one that might even make you add extra celery to your shopping cart). Serve this on the side to almost anything (think of any time you’d serve coleslaw or broccoli salad and serve this instead). It’s also especially good with anything made with buffalo sauce!

Key Ingredients

• Celery: You’ll want fresh, crunchy celery for this salad. If yours has been sitting in your produce drawer a little longer than you’d like and is a little floppy, trim the ends, submerge the stalks in a tall jar of ice water, then refrigerate for 30 minutes. It should rehydrate and crisp right back up.
• Mayonnaise or Yogurt: We make a creamy dressing for this salad. The base is up to you (mayonnaise and a thick, plain Greek yogurt both work). We slightly prefer the flavor when made with mayo, but we make both versions all the time. Using homemade mayo is a favorite when we have it in the fridge.
• Apple Cider Vinegar: This makes our dressing a little tangy (just like in our broccoli slaw). We also add a little sugar, which balances the vinegar nicely.
• Red Onion and Cucumber: These add more flavor and crunch. We love seedless cucumbers with thinner skins, like hothouse or English cucumbers. If you have thicker-skinned cucumbers with seeds, peel them and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds before slicing for the salad.
• Peanuts and Blue Cheese: The nuts add extra crunch, while the blue cheese adds flavor. We like a sweeter blue cheese like Gorgonzola. These ingredients also make this celery salad amazing with hot wings!
• Fresh Mint: Chopped fresh mint leaves take this salad to the next level. Add plenty to the salad, then add more on top when serving.

How to Make Creamy Celery Salad

First, prepare your celery, red onion, and cucumber. For the celery, trim the ends, then slice the stalks on a diagonal into ⅛-inch slices. This makes the celery super crunchy without having any stringy bites. You also want to thinly slice the onion; otherwise, it will be too strong in the salad. And finally, slice your cucumber into half-moons. Unless we have a thicker-skinned cucumber, we leave the peel on.

Then, make the salad dressing. Do this right in the bowl you plan to toss the salad in. Whisk together the mayonnaise (or yogurt), apple cider vinegar, sugar, and salt until smooth and blended.

Finally, toss everything together and let sit for 10 minutes. Add the celery, red onion, cucumber, most of the peanuts, the blue cheese, and the mint to the dressing, and mix well. This short resting time makes a big difference in how delicious the salad turns out. Toss once more, then serve with extra peanuts and mint scattered over the top.

More Ways to Use Celery