Here's a salad recipe that plays on some great fall flavors - persimmon, arugula, pecans, and blue cheese. This Thanksgiving salad idea will surprise and delight your guests! Also, if you have some Fuyu persimmons, this is a great way to use persimmons in a salad. Hope you love this persimmon salad!
the inspiration behind this persimmon salad
I love crunchy salads with weird flavor combos. When persimmons come around at the farmers' market, I get super excited to bake with them, eat them raw, put them on toasts and salads, and more. I'm always looking, too, for a better/surprising Thanksgiving side salad that gives that old-fashioned meal a little ooomph. Using Fuyu persimmons, you get a fruity, tender bite of persimmon against a sharper/bitter dandelion green. And that's tied all together with a little bleu cheese.
what's the difference between a fuyu and hachiya persimmon?
According to Out of the Box Collective, "The two most prevalent varieties at the markets right now are fuyu and hachiya persimmons.
Fuyu are the squat-shaped persimmons which are eaten while still hard and crisp. Perfect chopped into a salad, or eaten like an apple, they are a very different texture and experience from their distant cousin the Hachiya.
Hachiya are more elongated and need some time to go quite soft before they are ready to eat. Fully ripe, they should feel squishy like a water balloon or over-ripe tomato. Be patient, if you attempt to eat one before it has softened, it can be unpalatably astringent (or ‘furry’ tasting) as Hachiyas contain very high levels of soluble tannins. In other words, they can leave a nasty taste in your mouth."
Persimmon, Blue Cheese, and Pecan Salad
Ingredients
- 2 fuyu persimmons sliced thinly
- 1 oz bleu cheese crumbled
- 4 cups arugula
- ¼ cup pecans toasted
Simple vinaigrette
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ⅛ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Instructions
- shake together in a jar the oil, vinegar and mustard - set aside.
- slice the persimmons thinly into rounds -- you'll hit the seeds, so pull those out and keep on slicing.
- combine persimmons with the lettuce, cheese and pecans and toss to combine!