Festive Orange Winter Salad

I believe we went to five Friendsgivings this November. Before the fourth round of feasting, I decided we needed more green – just a splash to break up the delicious browns and yellows of corn, turkey and mashed potatoes. It had to be something festive though, something fun to make and delectable to eat. Something worthy of rubbing shoulders with all the glorious calories. This mightily flavorful roundup was the ringer. 

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Serves: about 4 servings as a main dish or 8 servings as a side salad

Ingredients

for the vinaigrette 

  • 1/2 tsp orange zest
  • 1/4 cup good olive oil
  • 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
  • 1 tsp white wine vinegar
  • kosher salt to taste
  • freshly ground pepper to taste

for the salad

  • big bowl’s worth of mixed greens*
  • 1 apple, preferably a sweet one like honeycrisp, diced
  • 1/2 cup or about 4 oz walnuts, lightly toasted in an ungreased pan for 5-10 minutes
  • 2 mandarin oranges, peeled, each slice chopped into thirds
  • 5 oz of gorgonzola cheese

*when I’m lazy, I buy a box of spring salad mix from the grocery store. You could also toss together some arugula, spinach and red lettuce. 

Directions

Toss salad ingredients. Whisk together vinaigrette ingredients. Dress salad within an hour of serving (the closer to serving time, the better). Sprinkle with salt and serve.

Note: This is an adaptation of Ina Garten’s Endive, Orange & Roquefort Salad. Endive was hard for me to locate and Roquefort cheese was more expensive than I cared for. My version is a bit more budget friendly, but you can follow the variations below for Garten’s original recipe.

Adaptations

  • Use 1/4 lb of French Roquefort cheese instead of gorgonzola.
  • Use 2 heads Belgian endive + 4 oz of baby arugula instead of store-bought mixed greens. If using endive, cut the heads of endive in half lengthwise, remove the triangle of core at the base of each half so the leaves separate, and cut the leaves in half again lengthwise.
  • You can use regular oranges, but they’ll take more work. Peel the organces, remove the white pith, then cut the orange into sections.