Apple Walnut Salad

Apple walnut salad is an easy, beautiful side dish or entree. Crispy apples, crunchy walnuts, tart cranberries, and creamy gorgonzola on a bed of greens. It's bursting with freshness and flavor!

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• 👩🏻‍🍳 Recipe Back Story
• 🥘 Ingredients Needed
• 🔪 Instructions
• 💭 Top Tips
• 👪 FAQs
• 🍴 Suggested Side Dishes
• 📋 Recipe Card
• 💬 Reviews and Comments

👩🏻‍🍳 Recipe Back Story

You know the feeling. Time is tight, you're hungry, you want something you can make quickly that will fill you up, taste good, still be healthy, and yet not leave you with a messy kitchen.

Basically the Holy Grail of weeknight dinners. Or apple walnut salad.

What makes this salad so great is that it combines a variety of flavors. The crispy sweetness of apples, tart bite of dried cranberries, nutty earthiness of walnuts, and sharp saltiness of gorgonzola crumbles come together over a bed of spring mix for healthy yet decadent dinner.

And to top it all off, your easy homemade dressing has a hint of lemony zing!

Fruits and vegetables are often viewed as two separate foods, to be enjoyed at different times. But combining them really gives you a great flavor profile.

Take for instance the refreshingly easy yet popular simple summer fruit and vegetable salad. The sweetness of the berries and the fresh taste of vegetables drizzled with a tangy glaze makes for a light, yet wholly satisfying lunch.

And now you can also enjoy apple walnut salad, which adds nuts and dried cranberries to the fresh garden veggies and fruit for an entree salad that is both filling and perfectly yummy.

These healthy ingredients provide many of the nutrients your body needs into a single meal.

Walnuts are rich in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. They are also purported to help with inflammation, gut health, and a host of other health issues.

Apples are a healthy prebiotic food, which means they're also great for gut health. High in vitamin C and polyphenols, there's also some truth about an apple a day keeping your doctor away.

Spring mix contains vitamins A, C, and K in addition to small amounts of protein, minerals, and iron. It's also a good source of fiber. The red onions provide essential amino acids as well as other nutrients.

This salad not only tastes great, but it's nourishing for your body. It's a light meal that won't weigh you down, but neither will it leave you hungry later at night. Because of the balance of healthy fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and the merging of all the flavors, it's incredibly filling and satisfying, which makes it an ideal weeknight dinner.

And it has the added benefit of being quick and easy to assemble and looking pretty, so it works great for company, too!

For a festive recipe, also try this Christmas Salad. Perfect for the holidays but appropriate all year round!

🥘 Ingredients Needed

• spring mix salad - is a mixture of greens, lettuces with bright fresh crunchy textures and flavors. Instead of purchasing several different types of lettuce, this bag has everything you want, affordably.
• dried cranberries - adds a nice tart bite.
• apples and walnuts - for crunchy texture and flavor.
• gorgonzola cheese - sharp and salty it crumbles nicely on top of the salad. If you need to substitute, feta cheese would be the next best thing.
• red onion - optional, but I enjoy the bite from the onion.
• olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice - for a quick homemade salad dressing.

🔪 Instructions

1. Mix together the salad dressing. Whisk the olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice in a bowl, or place in a jar and shake well.
2. Chop the apples into bite-sized pieces.
3. Add the spring salad mix to a large bowl. Top with cranberries, chopped walnuts, thinly sliced onions (optional), diced apples, and gorgonzola crumbles.
4. Lightly dress the salad. I always keep in mind I can add more dressing but you can't take it away! Add it just a bit at a time.

💭 Top Tips

Make sure your salad doesn't get wilty.

Don't add the dressing until right before serving. Add about ¾ of the dressing and toss, then add a little at a time and toss in between. Once everything seems to be well-coated, stop adding the dressing. Just enough really is enough!

Also, don't over-toss, which can crush the spring mix leaves and leave them looking less fresh than they really are.

Use the homemade dressing.

Salads are interesting when they are filled with freshness, texture, crunch, and sweetness. This salad has all of that, and then the freshly made dressing really ties it all together. Homemade salad dressings aren't as hard to make as you think and they add so much flavor, too!

Prep ahead of time.

Especially if you are making this for a holiday dinner, you might want to prepare some of it ahead of time. You can mix the dressing and store it in a container in the fridge. You can also measure out the other ingredients and store them in containers, ready to mix in when you are about to serve.

If you are really looking to streamline the last minute prep, you can even chop the apples a few hours ahead - simply toss the apple pieces in a little lemon juice and store in a container in the refrigerator.

👪 FAQs

🍴 Suggested Side Dishes

If you're looking to serve a salad and sandwich, then how about a red pepper grilled cheese, spectacular! This apple bacon panini is a great choice too. My favorite is a quesadilla - YUM!!!

For a sweet treat at the end of the meal - these pretzel cookie bites are perfect!

And for another great and easy salad, try this Kale Caesar Salad!

Love this recipe? Awesome! Please give it a 5 star ⭐ rating below! And if you make this, snap a photo and tag me on Instagram. You can find me at DizzyBusyandHungry or #dizzybusyandhungry!

📋 Recipe Card