PARTNER POST: Discover the nutritious and versatile wonders of watercress with these tasty recipe ideas.
This sweet and salty watercress salad is loaded with bacon, figs, gorgonzola cheese, candied nuts and a sweet and acidic honey champagne vinaigrette.
Dried fig, candied nuts, bacon bits, and crumbled Gorgonzola cheese drizzled with a honey champagne vinaigrette on a bed of watercress…sounds good right? This salad is light and tasty will totally make you feel like a gourmet chef!
I love salad. I especially like the fancy ones you find in good restaurants. I also have a thing for champagne. I really
really love champagne actually and will look for any excuse to incorporate it into my cooking.
Anyway, when B&W Growers asked me to create a salad using watercress I thought about what makes a good salad (for me anyway). I like salads that are a little savory, a little sweet, and very light. I don’t like heavy syrupy dressing which is why I thought a champagne vinaigrette would taste so good with watercress.
What I like about watercress is that it adds a lot of texture and crunchiness to a salad. You can find it in most grocery stores either in a bunch or bag. For this salad I used both romaine and watercress. I served this on Easter and everyone, including my kids, finished their plates. I chose figs because they are really rich and bold but not overpowering. Figs are kind of underrated if you ask me. We had a fig tree growing up and I remember eating them right off the tree. They are really good for you too. They are high in fiber, a good source of essential minerals including calcium (promotes bone density) and potassium (helps lower blood pressure) and are full of vitamins.
I added candied pecans because I just really like candied nuts and you can find them just about anywhere. I am a huge sucker for cheese and almost always include some kind of cheese in my salads. If you are not a Gorgonzola fan then you could easily substitute for goat cheese.
My family will eat just about anything made with bacon so the addition of bacon was definitely with them in mind. Throw some bacon on it and my kids are guaranteed to try it.
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