This Simple Fall Salad Deserves a Spot in Your Thanksgiving Unfold—and in Your Weeknight Dinner Rotation, Too!

Your fall and winter vacation spreads want a salad.

Sure, I do know that the vacations like Thanksgiving are for unabashed enjoyment of all issues wealthy, starchy, and beige, however hear me out. A salad not solely livens up the desk with vibrant colours but additionally serves as a welcome distinction to the heavy vacation staples, reminiscent of mashed potatoes, tacky casseroles, stuffing, and buttery rolls. Made with recent, palate-cleansing, bitter uncooked greens, juicy, caramelized pears, crunchy candied hazelnuts, and a bracing French dressing, our pear salad allows you to take a break from the gravy-doused portion of your plate with out lacking out on taste. 

After all, no person needs to give up treasured eating desk actual property to only any outdated bowl of greens, so we requested our Birmingham, Alabama-based take a look at kitchen colleague Julia Levy to create a winter pear salad that not solely is festive and special day–worthy, however can be simple sufficient to make for a weeknight dinner. And, wow, did she ship, testing batch after batch till she arrived on the good components. Learn on for the important thing strategies for attaining the best pear salad and for the complete recipe.

Key Strategies for a Vibrant Pear Salad

Use a mix of sturdy greens as the bottom. We chosen greens for this salad with taste and texture as the highest priorities. The late fall is the beginning of the excessive season for bitter greens like escarole, so it is a pure decide for a winter-inspired salad. Its crunchy, barely watery, vaguely bitter-sweet taste works effectively with the candy pears. Together with escarole, our salad’s base has butter Bibb lettuce—its tender, gentle leaves are the proper steadiness to the assertive escarole.

Sear the pears. As a substitute of simply including uncooked pear to the salad, we roast the pear wedges in a little bit of oil in a skillet till they’re caramelized on the floor however retain a slight crunch within the center. To make sure this, begin with barely underripe pears earlier than you sauté them (absolutely ripe pears are susceptible to falling aside when cooked).

Incorporate crunchy and punchy components. To actually make your salad memorable, you have to incorporate quite a lot of contrasting however complementary textures and flavors. A sprinkle of seasoned candied hazelnuts, rapidly browned on the stovetop, and pomegranate seeds (arils) add an interesting crunch that units this salad aside, whereas wealthy, punchy Gouda cheese provides a salty, contrasting chunk.

Whether or not you’re making a meal to impress vacation dinner visitors or simply need to rejoice the season throughout a daily weeknight dinner, this 30-minute salad is a winner.