Name: Strawberry-Blue Cheese Salad
Ingredients: 8 cups lightly packed, torn butter lettuce; 1 pint basket (12 to 14 ounces) California strawberries, stemmed and sliced 1/3 inch thick; 1/3 cup coarsely chopped red onion; Orange Vinaigrette (recipe follows); 6 tablespoons whole pecans, toasted; 6 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese

Why it works: Butter and blue cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 226 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

serves 6

Ingredients

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

8 cups lightly packed, torn butter lettuce
1 pint basket (12 to 14 ounces) California strawberries, stemmed and sliced 1/3 inch thick
1/3 cup coarsely chopped red onion
Orange Vinaigrette (recipe follows)
6 tablespoons whole toasted pecans
6 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese

Directions

Make the vinaigrette

To make the orange vinaigrette, in a small bowl whisk 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 ½ tablespoons white wine vinegar, 1 ½ tablespoons thawed frozen orange juice concentrate, 1 tablespoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper.

Assemble and serve

In a large bowl, toss lettuce, strawberries, onion and orange vinaigrette.
Divide the mixture equally onto six salad plates.
Top each serving with 1 tablespoon pecans and 1 tablespoon blue cheese.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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.

Butter + blue cheesetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together226 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Pecans + blue cheesetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together47 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Butter + pecanstop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,408 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Lettuce + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + pecanstop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together145 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter lettuce: Provides the crisp, leafy base that gives the salad its body.
Strawberries: Add sweetness and juiciness that moisten the leaves.
Blue cheese: Adds salty, tangy richness that contrasts with the sweet fruit.
Pecans: Add toasty crunch and a buttery aroma when toasted.
Honey (in the method): Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinaigrette.
White wine vinegar (in the method): Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the richness of the cheese.

Flavor stand-ins for the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lettuce, onion, pecans, blue cheese):

Avocadobetter flavor fit
Grapebetter flavor fit
Figbetter flavor fit
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lettuce, onion, pecans, blue cheese. 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).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.