Pomegranate & Pear Salad

Holiday meals are often heavy with meat, breads, and desserts, so it’s always nice to include a side salad or vegetable to lighten things up. We love how festive this salad looks with the green from the spinach and red from the pomegranate seeds.

Not only is this Pomegranate & Pear Salad beautiful, but it’s full of flavor! This refreshing salad is chock full of crispy spinach and arugula, sweet pear slices, goat cheese, a zingy vinaigrette, and bursts of pomegranate seeds. We also like to add candied nuts, which we have a simple recipe for below. For a holiday time saver, simply chop up a pouch of Squirrel Brand Salted Caramel Pecans (#2556).

A refreshing salad full of crispy spinach and arugula, sweet pear slices, goat cheese, zingy vinaigrette, and bursts of pomegranate seeds.

Pomegranate & Pear Salad

Ingredients:

• 7 oz. spinach
• 3 oz. baby arugula
• 1 oz. microgreens
• 1/2 cups goat or feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 or 2 pears, thinly sliced
• Seeds from 1 pomegrate

Champagne Vinaigrette:

• 1 Tbsp shallots, finely diced
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• Regal Fine Sea Salt (#1146) and AP Table Grind Black Pepper (#1029), to taste
• 3 Tbsp champagne vinegar

Candied Pecans:

• 1 cup Diamond Fancy Medium Pecan Pieces (#2812)
• 2 Tbsp AP Cinnamon-Vanilla French Toast Sugar (#1536)
• 2 Tbsp water

Instructions:

1. First, toss the spinach, arugula and microgreens in a salad bowl.
2. Then, whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients. Add more salt and pepper as needed, and refrigerate until ready to use.
3. For the candied pecans, add the pecans, cinnamon sugar and water to a skillet over medium heat. Cook until the sugar dissolves and caramelizes, stirring frequently. Quickly remove from heat and spread in a single layer on a piece of AP Parchment Paper (#1153) to cool.
4. Toss the spinach mixture and vinaigrette until evenly coated, then top with goat cheese, sliced pears, and pomegranate seeds. Enjoy!

Adapted from here and here.

Looking for more salad ideas?

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