Strawberry-Lettuce-Goat Cheese Salad

By Angelika Hanna

I had postponed to make this recipe for a while. When I heard of it in the beginning of this summer, my initial, spontaneous thought was: ‘This sounds interesting, I’m gonna try this’. But then, every time I went shopping at the grocery store, I felt rather hesitant about buying the goat cheese. Goat cheese is pricey, and adding it to my delicious – and also fairly expensive strawberries – I kept thinking: ‘What if we don’t like the goat cheese. The entire salad will be ruined.’ So I procrastinated week after week.

On my yesterday’s grocery shopping trip, I felt drawn to the cheese section and saw ‘goat’ written in big letters above all the different cheeses made with goat milk: Soft, medium and hard. I asked the vendor at the cheese deli what type of goat cheese she would recommend for a salad. It turned out that the harder to medium type of cheeses are more apt to put into salads. Goat mozzarella would work well; however, I decided to go for the medium-soft one coated with peppercorns; it has the texture of a brie and can be broken up into crumbs. I spreaded it over my lettuce-strawberry salad experiment.

Of course, I do not leave you here without giving a feedback about the outcome. All I can say is: ‘It is out of this world.’ I never expected this salad to be so delicious. The creamy goat cheese coated with peppercorns on a bed of crispy lettuce topped with fresh locally grown strawberries and sprinkled with crunchy walnut crumbs is simply a delight. The olive oil balsamic vinegar vinaigrette adds the perfect zest to the salad.

I need to thank the food blogger Paige for the idea to make this salad. Her post on her blog ‘Last Ingredient’ inspired me to finally make the goat cheese salad.

Recipe:

Prep Time: 20 min

Yield: 4 servings

Cuisine: Fusion, World Cuisine, Vegetarian, North American, Canadian

Author: Angelika Hanna / Zest4Food

Ingredients:

For the salad:

• 1 medium head of dark leaf lettuce, torn in pieces
• 1 big green onion, cut in rings
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• Fresh Strawberries, sliced
• Semi-soft peppercorn goat cheese, cut in pieces
• Walnuts crumbs

For the Vinaigrette:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil
• 2 tbsp dark balsamic vinegar
• 1 shallot, minced
• Kosher salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine the lettuce, green onions, red onion.
2. Add the strawberries.
3. Toss gently.
4. Top your salad with the goat cheese crumbs.
5. Sprinkle the walnut crumbs all over the salad.
6. Drizzle with the vinaigrette.

For the Vinaigrette:

1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.
2. Refrigerate until you serve the salad. The dressing can be conserved for 4-5 days in the fridge.

Enjoy!