This seemingly sophisticated salad is just a simple one in disguise. Combining beautiful flavours, the salad is a taster’s delight.
Rocket leaves have a beautiful mustardy-peppery flavour that contrasts the fruity & mildly sour apples. Adding to the crunch in this salad is the walnuts. Shaved Parmesan brings all the flavours together with its strong cheesy bite.
I took inspiration from the salad my friend and I order at a local pizzeria. The salad they serve has pears instead of apples and is served with a heavenly tasting dressing. Upon asking the pizzeria for the ingredients of the dressing they happily obliged. Turns out, white balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard give the dressing the superb flavour it has.
Apple & rocket salad with Parmesan is a light and easy salad that takes no time to prepare. It is a wholesome salad with good fats, vitamins and minerals from rocket leaves and apple.
This salad is great as a side for pastas, bakes, and casseroles or just on its own.
Serves: 2
Ingredients
- Granny Smith apple / green apple – 1, thinly sliced
- Rocket leaves – 2 cups
- Walnuts – ¼ cup, chopped roughly
- Shaved Parmesan cheese – 20 gm
- Salt and pepper – To taste
For the dressing:
- Extra virgin olive oil – 2 tblspns
- Dijon mustard/mustard (optional) – 1/2 tblspn
- White balsamic vinegar/ apple cider vinegar – 1 tblspn
- Balsamic glaze – As required
Directions
- In a small mixing bowl, add the ingredients for the dressing except the balsamic glaze.
- Give it a good mix to combine the ingredients. Keep aside.
- In a large bowl, add the sliced apples, rocket leaves, Parmesan cheese and walnuts. Drizzle some of the dressing, add the salt & pepper, and toss once again.
- Serve with a drizzle of the balsamic glaze.
Tips:
- Replace Granny Smith apples with other apple varieties.
- To prevent browning of the apple slices, you could squeeze some lemon/lime juice over them.
- Shaved Parmesan tastes the best with this salad as it has the interesting bite. If you don’t have it handy, just add shredded Parmesan cheese.
- Replace walnuts with pecan nuts or pine nuts.
- Replace olive oil with another oil of your choice.
- Dijon mustard gives a lovely sweet and nutty flavour, if you don’t have it, replace it with regular mustard or skip it altogether.
- To make the salad more wholesome, add other salad greens and baby spinach
