Plum, Beetroot & Blue Cheese Salad
With Granny Smith apples, toasted walnuts and an orange and balsamic dressing
If you find a salad as a side dish boring, let me change your mind! We are often unadventurous when it comes to salads, when there are so many components that you can add other than the standard lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. In fact, my favourite salad includes none of those!
This Beetroot, Granny Smith apple and plum salad with a creamy blue cheese, toasted walnut and an orange and balsamic dressing has rich earthy notes mixed with sweet and tangy apple.
It pairs well with ostrich or lamb, so why not serve them alongside a medium-rare Ostrich Steak or these Ostrich Fillet Kebabs, or try it with a Deboned Leg of Lamb prepared on the braai, or a Leg of Lamb slow-roasted in the oven? It also goes well with Lamb Chops (made in the Kiln pizza oven), and Lamb Skewers prepared on the grill. If you’re into cooking in the air fryer, I’ve also written up a recipe for Lamb Lollipops which can be braaied or grilled, but can also be prepared in an air fryer.
Ingredients to make the Plum, Beetroot & Blue Cheese Salad
80g watercress
500g beetroot cooked, peeled and quartered
2 large Granny Smith apples
250g plums, halved, de-pipped.
1 cup walnuts
100g crumbled creamy blue cheese
Ingredients for the Orange and Balsamic Dressing
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tsp honey
4 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp fresh garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
12 tbsp of olive oil
How to Prepare the Salad
Mix the dressing ingredients into a blender and whizz on high for 1 minute until creamy and fully blended. Set aside in a vacuum container in the fridge and chill for at least an hour.
Spray a griddle pan with non-stick oil and heat up to high.
Grill / char the plums, making sure to not overcook. The aim is to create griddle lines and char the one side of the plum for flavour but not cook through. Set aside in the fridge to cool.
Toast the walnuts on a medium heat.
Thinly slice the apples and cut into matchsticks. If preparing this beforehand, place the apple sticks into water with a 1cup to 1 tsp of lemon solution to stop the apple from browning.
Assemble the salad starting with the watercress, apple and beetroot with finally placing the grilled plums as the showcase on top.
Add the crumbled blue cheese and walnuts.
Mix the salad dressing ingredients together and dress the salad with the balsamic dressing just before serving.
Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!This recipe first appeared on Juicy Delicious SA.
More Salad Recipes
Below the newsletter block, you will find some more salad recipes.
Another salad that includes apple, is this Fennel and Granny Smith Apple Salad with Coriander, Celery Stalks, Toasted Pecan Nuts, Parmesan Cheese and Chicken Strips
This Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad is quick and simple to make and a great side on a hot summer’s day (and the colours are reminiscent of Christmas, so why not make them a side on your Christmas menu?).
Chimichurri goes well with steak, but if you want something different, this Grapefruit and Sweet Piquanté Pepper Salsa paired very well with a Rump Steak.
For an Italian-inspired salad, I’d recommend this Blistered Tomatoes, Bocconcini, and Basil Leaf Salad.
South Africans love cooking beetroot as well, and my personal favourite is this Beetroot Salad with Whipped Feta, Bacon, Roasted Olives and Toasted Pecan Nuts. What’s not to love?
Last but not least, if you are looking for a potato salad that is delicious, but not as fattening, this healthy alternative to the regular potato salad will reduce your calorie intake yet still makes a delicious side dish.
About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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