Warm Spinach Salad with Dunbarton Blue Cheese, Sliced Apple and Lambrusco Vinaigrette

Warm Winter Salad

  • Warm Winter Salad
  • Warm Winter Salad
  • Warm Winter Salad
  • Warm Winter Salad
  • Warm Winter Salad

NOTES

This salad is all about this Dunbarton Blue cheese that I am loving right now. You can make this with another blue cheese, but it will be less delicate. If your cheese monger doesn’t have this exact cheese, ask for a delicate hard blue. This is great easy winter salad for a large group. 

INSTRUCTIONS

Cut off roots of the spinach bunch, and then chop the bunch in half. Wash spinach very well, soaking it in the spinner, submerging the leaves in cold water multiple times before spinning. Spinach tends to be really gritty, and if you aren’t thorough in washing it, you will ruin this salad. Spin the spinach (ha).

Peel apple, slice thinly and add to a small bowl with cold water and juice of one lemon, toss around (this will prevent the apple from browning and give it a little citrus kick).

Slice shallot thinly. In a small sauce pan, add dressing ingredients except for oil. Allow to cook on low heat for about a minute until it is bubbling. Add your shallot to the pan and coat with the dressing.

Add olive oil in a slow and steady stream, whisk to emulsify.  While dressing is warm toss with spinach and make sure to coat all the leaves. Mature spinach is hearty enough that it will soften with the warm dressing without getting limp or soggy.

Add apples and use a vegetable peeler or a cheese shaver to shave the cheese on top. Crack pepper on top and sprinkle with sea salt.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

EASY

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SERVES

2

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PREP TIME

15 MINS

Salad

  • 1 
    bunch 
    mature spinach
  • 1 
     
    Cortland apple
  • 1 
     
    lemon, juiced
  •  
     
    Dunbarton Blue Cheese, (or other mild blue cheese)
  • 1 
     
    medium shallot
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    Maldon sea salt and cracked black pepper

Dressing

  • 2 
    tbs 
    Lambrusco vinegar
  • 1 
    tsp 
    balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 
    tsp 
    honey
  • 1 
    tsp 
    grain mustard
  • 3 
    tbs 
    olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

Cut off roots of the spinach bunch, and then chop the bunch in half. Wash spinach very well, soaking it in the spinner, submerging the leaves in cold water multiple times before spinning. Spinach tends to be really gritty, and if you aren’t thorough in washing it, you will ruin this salad. Spin the spinach (ha).

Peel apple, slice thinly and add to a small bowl with cold water and juice of one lemon, toss around (this will prevent the apple from browning and give it a little citrus kick).

Slice shallot thinly. In a small sauce pan, add dressing ingredients except for oil. Allow to cook on low heat for about a minute until it is bubbling. Add your shallot to the pan and coat with the dressing.

Add olive oil in a slow and steady stream, whisk to emulsify.  While dressing is warm toss with spinach and make sure to coat all the leaves. Mature spinach is hearty enough that it will soften with the warm dressing without getting limp or soggy.

Add apples and use a vegetable peeler or a cheese shaver to shave the cheese on top. Crack pepper on top and sprinkle with sea salt.

Ok, we are experiencing the 2nd Arctic Polar Freeze in the Northeast right now, and all I want is warm foods, long johns, and to cancel every single appointment I have. This is a great wintery salad for those of us who are working our computers with hats and gloves on today.

I am trying a new Brooklyn based CSA (community supported agriculture) program called Quinciple. They offer a weekly curated box that includes a protein, bread, cheese, eggs, vegetables, fruit and a pantry item. The idea is that you can craft multiple full meals using primarily what they give you, instead of spending all your cash at the farmer’s market and still not having everything you need to make dinner. I love a good CSA because it inspires you to cook with ingredients you wouldn’t otherwise buy or experiment with. In my box this week was winter spinach, and this beautiful Dunbarton Blue cheese. Spinach, apple and blue cheese are a no-brainer combo, but this cheese makes the trio far more delicate. It even motivated me to peel my apple, not something I would normally do for a casual lunch salad.

The cheese is made the same way any blue cheese is, to start: milk is inoculated with “Penicillium roqueforti.” When the wheels are one week old, they are pierced, creating space and air flow for the mold to grow. But, in this case, the wheels are pressed and made more compact, thus restricting the unbridled growth of that blue mold. The resulting cheese is a cross between a cheddar and a blue, not as stinky as a blue, nice and firm, shaveable not at all crumbly. I highly recommend seeking out this cheese.

I particularly enjoy buying apples in the winter. Did you know that apples are picked in the fall and stored in a cool dark place ALL winter without going bad? The apples we are buying at the farmer’s market in January were picked months ago! I used a winter Cortland apple for the salad – a firm apple that is on the tart side. I would recommend sticking to a tart variety of apple for this salad because the warm dressing is a little sweet.