Pear & Blue Cheese Salad
This mouthwatering Pear & Blue Cheese Salad is made with romaine lettuce,tart cherries, and crunchy hazelnuts-drizzled with a tangy dressing.
What I love about this Pear & Blue Cheese Salad, and nestling in at the end of the day with friends or family, is enjoying a meal together. For the fall and holiday season, this crisp fall salad gets its sweetness from fresh pears, and tartness from dried cherries.
For an extra crunch, we love the chopped hazelnuts, with a hint of creaminess from blue cheese.
Pear & Blue Cheese Salad
This fresh green salad with pears, nuts, dried fruit and blue cheese is a fresh side dish for your holiday table! It’s a great main dish salad for fall dinners, too, if you add chicken. Pair this salad with turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes–and you’re on your way to enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving meal.
A reader wrote about this salad: My favorite new salad! The flavors of everything in it was fabulous, and the dressing was absolutely delicious!
Why I love this recipe
- Bartlett pears are amazing and juicy right now, so this salad is perfect for fall.
- The tartness of dried fruit, with cheese, and crunchy nuts, makes the perfect pairing.
- Optional to use your favorite greens – spinach, arugula, or fresh greens are just as good as Romaine lettuce.
- Serve in a large salad bowl or on The Big Board.
Gather these ingredients
- Romaine lettuce, chopped
- Pears (we buy Bartlett and leave the skin on)
- Crumbled blue cheese (or you can use gorgonzola cheese)
- Dried cherries (we buy tart cherries at Trader Joe’s)
- Hazelnuts
- Orange or clementine zest
Ingredients for salad dressing
- Olive oil
- Rice wine vinegar
- Minced shallots
- Fresh lemon juice
- Real maple syrup
How do you make a Fresh Pear Green Salad?
- Wash and dry the chopped Romaine lettuce and place in a bowl or on a large food-safe board (with raised edge).
- Layer lettuce, chopped pears (leave the skins on), blue cheese, hazelnuts, and cherries.
- Make the dressing: Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, shallots, lemon juice, and maple syrup.
- Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.
- Lastly, add fresh orange zest lightly on the salad and serve.
Tips and substitutions:
We love pear season, and when they are ripe, they are delicious in a green salad, but you can also substitute them for apples or red grapes (or both).
- If you don’t want to make the homemade dressing, we grabbed a bottle of Cindy’s Kitchen Honeycrisp Apple Vinaigrette the other day, and it was fantastic.
- Swap out the hazelnuts for either toasted walnuts, pecans, or almonds (finely chopped).
- Use any kind of dried fruit, for example, dried cranberries, blueberries, or golden raisins.
- Optional to leave out the cheese (below) or swap out the blue cheese for any other variety, like goat cheese, or gorgonzola cheese.
- Add avocados!
How do you serve a Pear & Romaine Salad?
Serve this salad in your favorite large salad bowl OR on the big board.
The 12×36″ Big Board fits so nicely on the kitchen counter. We also use this board at home on our piano with drinks, desserts, or appetizers. It’s the perfect “long” size.
You can see that our boards have a raised edge, and the salad ingredients stay on the board very nicely. There’s nothing worse than serving food on a board that falls off. The boards are also food safe.
A board is a fun way to serve for the holidays! We recently went to a party and brought this salad. So good, everyone loved it.
More recipes you may enjoy for a fall dinner party:
One-Pot Chicken Paprika Thighs
This salad recipe – Pear & Blue Cheese Salad.
Get the Recipe:
Pear & Blue Cheese Salad
Ingredients
- 2 large heads romaine lettuce, chopped
- 2 pears, cut into bite-sized pieces, we use Bartlett
- 6 oz crumbled blue cheese
- ½ cup dried cherries
- ⅓ cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts
Make the dressing:
- ½ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsp. minced shallots
- 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp. real maple syrup
- Orange or clementine zest, optional
Instructions
- In a large bowl or a food board, layer the lettuce, pears, blue cheese, hazelnuts, and cherries.
- Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, shallots, lemon juice, and maple syrup to make the salad dressing.
- Drizzle the dressing over salad and toss to combine.
- Zest fresh orange over the top before serving.
Notes
Hello and welcome to my home and table!
I’m Sandy—lover of food, family, cooking, THE BIG BOARD, travel, and bringing people together. Through great recipes and connection around the table, we become better, stronger, and more courageous people. Feasting on Life is real, and every time we do it, we grow a little more. Read more...
My favorite new salad! The flavors of everything in it was fabulous, and the dressing was absolutely delicious,