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
Radish protector
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.
