Apple, Walnut & Bleu Cheese Salad
This Apple, Walnut & Bleu Cheese Salad will impress all of your guests- it's sweet, tart, crunchy, earthy and simply delicious.
Ingredients
- two medium apples one green Granny Smith and one red Honey Crisp or Gala
- 4 heads of red Treviso Radicchio root removed and leaves separated
- 4 oz bleu cheese I used Colston Bassett Stilton from Neal's Yard Dairy
- 1 cup walnut halves
Sherry Vinaigrette:
- ¼ cup sherry vinegar
- 1 T lemon zest
- ½ t honey
- ½ cup good ollive oil
- ¼ t crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 garlic clove grated on microplane
- ¼ t pink Himalayan salt
- 10 turns fresh-cracked black pepper plus more for garnishing
- Maldon flaked sea salt for garnishing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and arrange walnuts on a small parchment- lined baking sheet. Bake walnuts 400 for 5-7 minutes to lightly toast. Set aside to cool.
- Make sherry vinaigrette. In a mason jar, add all ingredients then shake vigorously to emulsify- about 20-30 seconds.
- Slice apples and add to a medium bowl. Toss with 1/3 of your vinaigrette.
- With a butter knife, gently create rustic larger crumbles of the bleu cheese.
- On a decorative platter, assemble salad. Begin by adding 1/2 of your radicchio leaves scattered across your platter. Begin adding bundles of your apples, with the pretty skin facing outward and fanning out. Add remaining radicchio leaves and drizzle desired amount of reserved vinaigrette atop radicchio leaves. Add walnuts across platter, followed by blue cheese crumbles.
- Finish salad with fresh-cracked-black pepper, flaked malden sea salt and and a final drizzle of vinaigrette, (you may likely have leftover vinaigrette). You can make the salad the morning of your event and wrap carefully to prevent air from oxidizing apples. Serve chilled.