Recipe: Fig, Goats Cheese and Walnut Salad with Honey and Sea Salt

Around this time last year I was enjoying a love affair with a simple yet delicious salad featuring fresh figs and walnuts with honey and sea salt inspired by another blogger (this blogger appears to be no longer active sadly). As delicious as that was, I always felt that what would really make it pop would be the addition of some creamy salty goats cheese. Being vegan (apart from honey) at the time, I resisted that addition, however now that I am embracing a more liberal approach to eating I could not wait to try it out!

Fig, Goats Cheese and Walnut Salad with Honey and Sea Salt (Vegetarian, serves 1 generously)

• 4 cups of shredded greens – I used romaine
• 3 fresh figs
• 100g of full fat soft goats cheese (I used organic)
• 1/4 cup of walnut halves roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp of honey
• 1/4 tsp of sea salt

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp of honey
• pinch of salt

Add your greens of choice to a large bowl. Cut the figs into wedges and scatter over the greens then crumble over the goats cheese. In a small bowl mix the honey, sea salt and walnuts until the walnuts are well covered in the honey mixture and scatter on top of the salad. To make the dressing combine all ingredients well and then pour over the salad, serve immediately!

You could easily veganise this by replacing the goats cheese with a tofu ricotta or a nut cheese and replacing the honey with agave or brown rice syrup.

This salad would also taste delightful with any number of changes made to the combination of fruit, nuts and cheese depending on the season and your tastes, for example peaches, cherries or pears would be great in this as would pecans or macadamia nuts and feta or cheddar.

Even an apple, pecan and Cheshire cheese combo would be amazing!

I can certainly see me enjoying a variation of salad on a regular basis from now on!

Do you like the addition of fruit in a salad? What’s your favourite fruit and nut combo?