My favorite kinds of salads are the ones that have lots of interesting flavor, texture and brightness. This salad was simple, but it still met all of those criteria. The romaine is fresh and crunchy, the blue cheese is pungent, the toasted pepitas add good crunch and flavor, and the pickled red onions and radishes add a hit of acidity and a bit of heat.
Another great thing about this salad is that you use the liquid from pickling the veggies and the oil from frying the pepitas to make the dressing, so nothing gets wasted and the dressing has really great flavor too. 🙂 I really liked this salad, my only improvement would have been to add more blue cheese.
Romaine Salad with Toasted Pepitas, Blue Cheese and Pickled Red Onion
Tasty romaine with pepitas, blue cheese and pickled red onion and radish
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup pepitas I used roasted/salted ones and still fried them up. You could use those or raw.
- 2 heads romaine hearts cleaned and chopped
- 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles or more to taste
- 1/2 red onion finely sliced
- 4-6 radishes cleaned, trimmed and sliced into matchsticks
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- fresh black pepper
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a skillet over medium until hot. Add the pepitas and if not using salted ones, add a sprinkling of salt. Fry them until they are lightly toasted. Remove and drain on paper towels and save the oil for the dressing. Allow it to cool before using.
- Mix the vinegar with the honey, salt and pepper and 2 tbsp of water. Add the onions and let pickle for 10-15 minutes. Strain them and keep the vinegar for the dressing.
- Mix the oil and vinegar and taste and reason with salt and pepper if needed.
- Toss your romaine with the dressing. Put onto plates and top with the pickled onions, radishes, blue cheese and pepitas and serve.