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Deliciously Sweet Salad with Maple, Nuts, Seeds, Blueberries, and Goat Cheese

"My mom began making this salad a few years ago and, as soon as I tried it, I just had to get the recipe. This is my version, but can be varied in many different ways because it's all about the dressing! So simple, yet so delicious that you are sure to get requests for the recipe whenever you make it! You can use pecans, almonds, or pine nuts in place of the walnuts."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and goat cheese work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and 37 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Place the torn romaine lettuce in a large salad bowl and set it aside.

  2. In a small bowl or jar, whisk the white balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, grapeseed oil and a pinch of salt until smooth. Taste and adjust the vinegar, maple syrup, oil or salt to your liking.

  3. Add the blueberries, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and walnut pieces to the romaine.

  4. Drizzle about two-thirds of the dressing over the salad and toss gently until the leaves are evenly coated.

  5. Sprinkle the crumbled feta cheese and crumbled goat cheese over the top.

  6. Serve right away, passing the remaining dressing at the table.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lettuce + goat cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Feta cheese + goat cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sunflower + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lettuce + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Walnut + goat cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sunflower, walnut, feta cheese, goat cheese, vinegar, maple syrup):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sunflower, walnut, feta cheese, goat cheese, vinegar, maple syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).