This curly endive salad with fruit and walnuts has its story and now I’ll tell it to you. First of all, know that finding myself with 2 crates of fresh curly endive gifted to me while I was on vacation in Italy, I had to do something with them…
Years ago I did a collaboration with an international agricultural company in Emilia Romagna. They asked me to create two recipes with curly endive for one of their booklets and here is one of them.
The project was managed by Letizia, a friendly young woman who runs the Love my Salad project here in Italy. I met her many years ago in Bologna and she gave me some crates of vegetables. The endives we received (we ate endive for days) were two varieties called Timehal and Avral.
I added this big vegan salad among the side dishes but it’s far from just a side dish: this is a real meal. And not only that: if you want to place a beautiful centerpiece plate that everyone can help themselves from, colorful and light, even for the Christmas table, this endive salad is truly perfect.
And of course this variety of endive was very tasty and pleasantly bitter, but any type of curly endive will work well. Let’s prepare it and if you’d like some other light salads here are a few:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Budget-friendly
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Cooking time: 2 Minutes
- Portions: 2
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Healthy
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 1 curly endive (curly)
- 1 Gala apple (or other crisp sweet apple)
- 1/2 pomegranate
- 4 walnuts (shelled)
- 1 tablespoon pine nuts (about 1 tablespoon)
- 2 tablespoons dried cranberries (or raisins)
- 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons water
- to taste salt
- Points per serving = 5 WW points
Steps
First, toast the pine nuts and walnut halves in a pan for a couple of minutes, taking care not to burn them. Then leave them on a small plate to cool. Remove the tough parts of the endive, wash all the leaves thoroughly, cutting the larger ones and drain well.
Remove the pomegranate seeds, collecting any juice in a bowl. Wash the apple thoroughly (better if organic) so you can leave the skin on, remove the core and cut it into thin slices.
In a small glass put a little salt, 2 teaspoons of oil and the balsamic vinegar. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water and mix well. Everything is ready to assemble the salad!
Place all the endive in a large salad bowl in a fan shape. Arrange the apple slices, the pomegranate seeds with their juice, the dried cranberries, walnuts and pine nuts over the endive and finish by drizzling the olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing over everything.
Here is this beautiful curly endive salad with fruit and walnuts: full of color and flavor. We really enjoyed it and I liked it in particular because, besides being delicious, there’s a lot to chew so it takes a long time to finish.
It’s very filling and I recommend it, besides as a side dish, as an appetizer. Make it and tell me if you liked it.
Enjoy your meal!
by Giovanna Buono
Tips
I recommend eating half a portion of this big salad as an appetizer so you start already quite full and avoid overeating with the other dishes.
In fact I would put it in the center of the table on festive days; it seems perfect for Christmas, so everyone can take a little and nibble on something low-calorie and filling.
