My 2 Favorite Fall Salads

I’m actually NOT a salad person. At least I wasn’t until I started growing my own greens. That changed everything for me! Now I crave homemade dressings and can whip up these easy salads as sides or mains in a jiffy.

These salads are inspired by winter greens, which will thrive starting in the fall all the way until early Spring! They have other seasonal ingredients that you’ll love too which add dimension and flavor.

*The homegrown elements here are kale, butter lettuce, and butternut squash. The apples were foraged during an apple-picking outing.

 

My 2 Favorite Fall Salads:

Butter Lettuce and Apple Salad in a Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette

• Butter lettuce

• 1 Apple
• 4 oz cooked chicken (great leftovers usage)
• Handful of walnuts
• 3 oz pecorino cheese chopped from block

For this salad, throw together butter lettuce, apples, chicken, chunks of pecorino, and walnuts. Bonus points if they’re candied. Then toss with the Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette dressing, which is the real star of the show.

 

Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette:

• 4 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar (red wine vinegar works too!)
• Minced shallot (about the amount of a clove of garlic)
• pinch of salt and pepper
• squeeze of half a lemon

Assemble and shake in a mason jar. Store leftovers in fridge for a few days.

Kale Caesar Salad with Butternut Squash 

This is the easiest salad ever. It’s basically a way to use kale without having to taste it, if you’re not that into kale. In this recipe I’m using Lacinto kale, but dinosaur kale works too!

• Kale
• caesar dressing
• butternut squash roasted
• parmesan cheese

The only prep needed for this is to roast your butternut squash. Set oven to 400 degrees. Peel and cube your butternut squash and then toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. Place into oven on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for about 30 minutes tossing once at the 15 min mark. The parchment paper is key because it helps the squash caramelize in the oil.

Once the squash is out of the oven, let it cool a bit. Place your kale in a bowl and drizzle caesar dressing on top, then place your butternut squash on and slice some parmesan on top. All done!

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