Butternut squash makes a lovely fall side dish but have you considered it for salad? Roasted…
Simply Spinach and Fig Salad
If you’ve never made a warm spinach salad, give this one a try! It’s quick, simple and a nice change from every day salads. Spinach has been plentiful in my winter CSA box*, though I buy it year-round in convenient pre-washed packages too.
In this salad, dried figs are a sweet addition to the tangy warm dressing and salty feta cheese. Either the light colored calimyrna or black mission figs are equally good. Hazelnuts are my favorite for this salad though a bit expensive, so toasted walnuts or pecans are a good substitute. Serve the salad with grilled or rotisserie chicken. (If you have leftover chicken, try my Chicken-Simple Dinner !)
An original recipe by Rosemary Mark for Sun-Maid Growers Photo: Kelly Burgoyne
Warm Spinach and Fig Salad
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp. tablespoon finely chopped red onion
- 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 10-12 dried Calimyrna or Black Mission figs stemmed and quartered
- 2 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. sherry or cider vinegar
- 8 cups (6 0z.) baby spinach leaves, rinsed and dried
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts
- Fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste
Nutrients per Serving: Calories 210; Protein 4g; Fat 12g (Sat. Fat 2.5g); Carbohydrate 22g; Dietary Fiber 4g; Cholesterol 10mg; Sodium 140mg
*CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, in short, a farm that provides a selection of fresh produce, usually organic, direct to consumers via delivery or a local drop-off point. It’s a convenient way to buy local and direct from a farmer. This website is a resource to find CSA’s in the U.S. http://www.localharvest.org/
Hi Rita (and Rosie),
I like your blog and look forward to more recipes. The spinach and fig salad looks very good. We like hazelnuts and walnuts, so will try both. I will also try blue cheese instead of feta.
I tried going to the Chicken-Simple Dinner link and my Norton anti-everything software wouldn’t let me go there. It even gave me a red and black outlined dialog box that said “Site is Unsafe!”. The only thing missing was funeral music. Scary.
Don’t know if that’s your plan, but my copy of your email came in “plain text”. If it’s an option, Rich Text is much better looking.
Good luck.
Pete
Thanks for the technical comments Pete, we really appreciate it! I’ve fixed the link to Chicken-Simple Dinner. Will have get our designer to see what can be done about the Rich Text, which I agree would look a lot better.
Rosemary……. this warm spinach salad looks delicious! Will make this one for my family this weekend! Looks simple , yet elegant! Thanks!
Thanks Valerie. Let me know how it turned out!
We make a fig salad all the time. Because of nut allergies, we don’t use any nuts in the salad. This salad is an absolute hit at the dinner table, with adults AND kids. Here is the recipe that I use http://cuceesprouts.com/2010/08/roasted-figs-salad/
There are so much food I haven’t tried cooking and I’m really happy to see these kinds of recipes here and learn from it. This salad is interesting! Thanks for sharing Rosie