Chopped Salad w/ Blue Cheese Dressing – My Nepenthe
This chopped salad recipe is super easy and satisfying. Add your favorite toppings and it’s a lovely lunch for the week.
Chopped Salad Recipe
We’re half way through April 2011. How did that happen? Are we the only ones feeling like we should still be in February? From the sound of all the snow falling throughout the cold regions of the country, we certainly should be in February! Obviously we’ve been hammered with work and we’re definitely not complaining. It’s been a wild and wonderful ride so far this year. With some ups and downs lately, we’ve been able to pick up and start over again and we still love our job.
With so much time away from the garden, it’s always such a treat to see Spring vegetables explode in the recent warm weather. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to keep up with some of the radishes that have been flowering faster than we can eat them. Luckily, the wonderful thing about about radishes is that they sprout and swell so quickly. Within a few weeks we can have basket full of tender, bite sized radish roots. What a culinary treat and gardeners dream they are.
Napa cabbage makes a wonderful chopped salad
With the greens still thriving before we hit the springtime/summer heat, it is a perfect time for a chopped salad. A little crunch and spice from the radishes, a little green roughage, and an herb laden blue cheese dressing… how perfect of a spring salad is that. Delicious!
This dressing is an adaption from My Nepenthe, a cookbook/memoir of the funkadelic, gastronomic Big Sur institution, Nepenthe. It is really good. But just about anything with blue cheese is really good. It’s kinda like pork belly or bacon. Automatic gastro love.
Sierra guarding the precious radishes. Squirrels might steal the radishes
Chopped Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing
Ingredients
Blue Cheese Dressing
- 2 cloves Garlic , crushed
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped Basil
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped Oregano
- 2 teaspoons Hot Mustard Powder
- 2 teaspoons fresh cracked Black Pepper
- 2 teaspoons Brown Sugar
- 1 teaspoons Sea Salt
- 6 ounces (170g) Blue Cheese , crumbled
- 2/3 cup (155ml) Red Wine Vinegar
- 1/2 cup (120ml) Olive Oil
- 1 cup (235ml) Grape Seed Oil (or canola oil)
For the salad:
- 3 cups (about) chopped napa cabbage or regular cabbage
- fresh radishes or other vegetables , chopped
Instructions
- Assemble all the dressing ingredients (garlic, herbs, mustard powder, black pepper, brown sugar, salt, blue cheese, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and grape seed oil) in a large bowl or jar. Combine well.
- Toss dressing over cabbage and vegetables.
Hi! I have a question about napa cabbage, I have never used it before and I noticed when I got mine home there were little brown spots on the leaves towards the root…what is that and is it safe to eat? Until I found out I had to err on the side of caution and I cut all those pieces out! I HAD to make this salad though, since I saw the pictures yesterday I couldnt stop thinking about it…it looks gorgeous with all those fat pieces of blue cheese (I LOVE blue cheese!) so I had to go to the store tonight to get the cabbage & radishes (Im a radish convert) and I also picked up some carrots. I sliced them both thin with the madolin (I know, it doesnt count as the “chopped” salad) but the dressing…OH the dressing! So fabulous! Cant wait until lunch time tomorrow!
Sierra is just too precious…I would guard those babies too ๐ Great salad and love this dressing, lovely.
Made the dressing last night and it was delicious. Big thanks for the recipe!
First – your doggie is super cute and a perfect subject to photograph! This salad is amazing and a must make! Thank you for sharing.
I must say Sierra is super photogenic ๐ This salad looks very delicious and i always enjoy Napa cabbage in salad.
What a great recipe for dressing. Radishes are so good. I am always munching on them. Beautiful pictures and a great looking dog.
It’s been many years since I visited breathtaking Nepenthe. Your salad looks perfect, I can visualize it being served on their deck overlooking the blue Pacific.
Wilson sends regards to Sierra…
Wishing you a wonderful Easter.
LL
Love, L.O.V.E. blue cheese, so I will be making this dressing shortly! And Sierra is so cute as the radish protector but as another commenter said, probably not so much a blue cheese protector. Lol!
Everytime you put a pup in a post I am like “oohh ahhh”…dog peeps…we’re incorrigible and that’s fine by me ๐
I planted radishes this year. My first “serious” planted item beside herbs and only motivated by my stroll through your garden last year. It’s growing. Slowly but steadily. Baby steps!
The salad does scream Spring loud and clear! Gorgeous colors and light.
Seriously. I have just started eating radishes this year. I would never touch them but for some reason their beauty got me. Not bad! I could use a nice salad like this. I made around 100 cupcakes today and several landed in “la bouche”. Wonderful photos. I am really enjoying your site.
My radishes grow so fast, it is wonderful but also inundates us with a heck of a lot of radish to consume. Thank goodness I can handle the task!
The dressing, salad, photography…all just sooo wonderful looking.
I also love how you use wood in so many of your photographs. I am just realizing how wonderful wood + food can be together in the past few weeks!
Two weekends ago my husband and I went to Big Sur and dined at Nepenthe. Besides the views (which literally made my heart sing) the food was amazing and the wine list was divine. I’ll just have to make this salad so I can daydream about being back there…
We are growing (perhaps the same) similar looking radishes. My neighbor and I share our veggie patch tucked into the side of our house facing an alley and when I’m out there working the soil I always get people stopping to chat about herbs and bugs. It’s fun to pluck a radish out, give it a quick rinse, and offer it to a stranger. ๐ We like those radishes cut paper thin and perched atop salted butter on a slice of french bread. Divine!