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.
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. 🙂 We like those radishes cut paper thin and perched atop salted butter on a slice of french bread. Divine!
i love the sound of this salad, and the dressing. napa cabbage and radishes make an amazing combo. cute dog, too!
Is your radish protector a boxer? My mom has a boxer and they are the greatest dog! Chopped salad has always been a favorite of mine and this one looks delicious!
I have a blue cheese dressing I make, but I’m switching it up for this one this week sometime. It looks too good to pass on. I need to get a garden protector as loyal as yours. The squirrels here are relentless, and I haven’t even planted a single thing yet.
That dog is so cute!!!
hello, just wanted to say i love your blog! stunning photos, delicious recipes:)
sarah from seoulinthecity
I love My Nepenthe! (the place and the book). I haven’t tried this recipe yet but I will. Beautiful photos as always.