Savory & sweet cheese salad

Salads have been a go to meal for me for years now and I have come across some great combinations. My general rule of thumb is to add plenty of greens in the shape of lettuce and spinach and then pack with with more veggies with my basis usually being tomatoes and cucumbers. I like topping it up with some protein and where I sometimes go for meat, I very often opt for cheese as well. It not only provides some highly nutritious ingredients to any salad you make, but it also adds a yumminess factor.

I like using different types of cheeses, but my favorite cheese for making salads is most definitely goat’s cheese, the soft variety. Sure, you can use gouda, brie, cheddar, and any other cheese you find, but goat’s cheese is the most versatile. With some honey, raisin and walnuts, it is the perfect component in a sweet cheese salad. With some sun dried tomatoes and blanched asparagus it makes for the perfect companion to a savory sweet salad.

Savory salad with goat’s cheese, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus

Ingredients:

• Leafy greens
• Alfalfa
• Sun dried tomatoes
• Pine nuts
• Green asparagus
• Soft goat’s cheese

Toss your leafy greens into a bowl with a dressing of your choice. I never use dressings as I find it makes the greens go soggy too quickly. Add a dollop of alfalfa on top. Make sure you have shortly boiled your asparagus beforehand and have let them cool down in the fridge (this requires some preparation). Slice up the asparagus and sun dried tomatoes. Sprinkle with pine nuts and goat’s cheese and you’re done.

Green salad with tomatoes and brie

Ingredients:

• Assorted lettuce
• Cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Brie

This salad is probably the easiest to make and also very yummy. This is a great salad to make on ‘leftover day’: when you still have a few bits in your fridge that you simply chuck together. That is how this salad came about. You simply toss your salad in a bowl, add your sliced cucumber and tomatoes and then just add your lumps of brie. Easy, breezy and tasty.

Sweet salad with apple slices raisins and goat’s cheese

Ingredients:

• Lettuce
• Cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Sweet/sour apple (I used braeburn for this)
• Walnuts
• Raisins
• Soft goat’s cheese

Again, just toss your basic lettuce of lettuce cucumber and tomatoes, but this time we are dressing it up differently. Adding apples (or mandarins) will give you that nice balance between sweet and sour that nicely complements the other flavors in this. The apple cannot be too sweet, but needs to be a little bit tart. You could go for a green apple if you’d like, but I find that can clash with the creaminess of the goat’s cheese. Just add a bit of crunch in the shape of walnuts, some extra sweetness with some raisins and then you have a tasty salad that is perfect any time of year.

Sweet cheese salad with raisins, walnuts and a drizzle of honey

Ingredients:

• Leafy greens
• Alfalfa
• Raisins
• Cucumber
• Walnuts
• Goat’s cheese
• Honey

The ultimate sweet salad is not made with fruit, but with a little bit of honey drizzled over top. It is sort of like dessert but not quite and far better for you. The combination of goat’s cheese and honey always reminds me of Greek yoghurt and so this makes it extra tasty to me. The basis is again my usual, but this time I replaced the tomatoes for alfalfa, which is another one of my go tos. I again added some walnuts for the crunch and there you have it.

Do you ever put cheese on your salads?