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Spinach Salad with Sweet-Spicy Nuts, Apples, Feta and Bacon

It’s chock full of everything I love: fresh baby spinach, crisp sweet apple slices, tart dried cranberries, tangy feta cheese, bacon-bacon-bacon, and delicious sweet and spicy caramelized nuts. The combination rocks. Plus the super simple (we’re talking shake up the ingredients in a jar and call it good) vinaigrette is the perfect complement to the salad ingredients.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Spinach Salad with Sweet-Spicy Nuts, Apples, Feta and Bacon

Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 25,665 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Salad with Sweet-Spicy Nuts, Apples, Feta and Bacon

Serves 6
Prep15 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By tastykitchen. 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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, vinegar, olive, garlic, mustard, sugar, pepper):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, vinegar, olive, garlic, mustard, sugar, pepper. 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).