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Chicken and Apple Panzanella Salad

A fall-inspired bread salad made with chicken, apples and goat cheese and topped with pomegranate arils and a balsamic maple dressing.

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Why it works: Pomegranate and goat cheese work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep10 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, 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. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

  2. Toss the bread cubes with the olive oil and maple syrup until evenly coated, then spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake for about 5 minutes, until the cubes are crisp and lightly toasted. Let them cool for a few minutes.

  4. If the cooked chicken is cold, you may warm it. If warming, heat it through to 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part.

  5. In a large bowl, combine the toasted bread, diced apple, pomegranate arils, and chicken.

  6. Drizzle with the balsamic dressing and toss gently to coat.

  7. Scatter the crumbled goat cheese over the top and serve right away so the bread stays crisp.

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. Pomegranate + goat cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Walnut + pomegranatetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together71 recipes

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

  3. Cranberry + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together169 recipes

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

  4. Olive + goat cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together557 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Cranberry + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the pomegranate

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cranberry, walnut, bread, olive, honey, apple, chicken):

  1. Grapebetter flavor fit
  2. Pearbetter flavor fit
  3. Figbetter flavor fit
  4. Pomegranatethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cranberry, walnut, bread, olive, honey, apple, chicken. 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).