Fall Harvest Salad

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• You should have a big salad for every season. With roasted butternut squash, apples, cranberries and pecans, this recipe is peak fall. Even though there’s a chill in the air, you shouldn’t stop eating greens. Just make adjustments with heartier lettuces and both cooked and raw components.
• It has fruit and vegetables. Nothing beats a salad that has mostly savory ingredients with moments of sweet. That variety in taste and texture keeps you going back for more.
• This is an everyday salad, but it’s also worthy of get-togethers and holidays like Thanksgiving. Since the lettuce for the salad is kale with some chopped romaine mixed in, it’s sturdy enough to stay crisp when it’s part of a full spread that sits out longer than usual. It also looks beautiful with all that colo.

The Ingredients

This is what you need:

• Butternut squash: You want to pick a squash that’s smaller in size, about 1-3/4 to 2 pounds. You can buy peeled and cubed butternut squash if you’re looking for a shortcut. Also, you can substitute with sweet potatoes. 
• Apples: Go for varieties that are crisp such as Honeycrisp apples or Pink Lady. They are both slower to brown, but you can toss the apples in lemon juice after you dice them to be extra careful.
• Kale & romaine: If you aren’t the biggest kale person, chopped romaine takes some of the bitterness away from the kale leaves.
• Red onions, finely chopped, add sharpness to the salad greens.
• Pecans are a great choice for fall salads. You can substitute with toasted walnuts.
• Pumpkin seeds are the it seed of autumn. You can use raw or roasted.
• Dried cranberries add sweet accents to the salad. You can substitute with pomegranate seeds for something fresh and juicy.
• Goat cheese crumbled into the salad is creamy with its tangy flavor. If you prefer something saltier, you can use feta cheese.
• Cornbread croutons: Yes, it is an extra step to bake cornbread and then crouton it, but it is definitely worth it. I have a recipe for homemade buttermilk cornbread, but you can buy it already made, if you are looking for a shortcut.
• Apple cider vinaigrette: The dressing has minced garlic, whole grain mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper and, of course, apple cider vinegar.

Serving

As mentioned, this would be a great choice for Thanksgiving. With roasted turkey and all the side dishes, you might forget about a salad, but having a fresh salad is a must for heavy holiday meals.

This salad is filling enough to for a main dish lunch or dinner. You can even add chicken, salmon or tofu if you want a little something more to finish it out.

Recipe Tips

• You can roast the butternut squash up to 2 days in advance. Store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Let it sit out at room temperature for at least 15 minutes, so it isn’t as cold as when you first take it out of the fridge.
• Also, you can make the dressing up to 3 days ahead of time. Keep it in the fridge in a jar. Take it out of the refrigerator 15 minutes before you’re going to toss it in the salad. Oil has a tendency to harden in cold temperatures. Also, stir it to turn it into liquid again.
• Rather than tossing the cornbread croutons in the salad with the other ingredients, top the plated salad with them. Then they won’t get lost in the greens.
• Make sure to pull apart the dried cranberries. They tend to stick together in the package. In order to measure them correctly and for them to be mixed throughout the salad, you don’t want any clumps.

More Fall Salad Recipes

Kale Apple Salad
Apple Cabbage Salad
Apple Walnut Salad with Quinoa
Autumn Chopped Salad
Roasted Squash Salad

Check out my collection of simple seasonal salad recipes including some of favorite ingredients and tips for making better salads. Love roasted veggies? Don’t miss my roasted vegetable recipe guide.