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Apple Avocado Salad with Tangerine Dressing

"This easy salad is perfect for a hot day and it is very filling. You wouldn't think this mixture of apples, avocados, blue cheese, and tangerine dressing would go together, but it's wonderful!"

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Why it works: Avocado and mandarin orange work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

10 servings
Prep20 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. Juice the 4 mandarin oranges and the 1/2 lemon into a small bowl, then whisk in the 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, the minced garlic, the 2 tablespoons olive oil and salt to taste to make the tangerine dressing.

  2. Toast the chopped walnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often, until fragrant, then let them cool.

  3. In a large bowl, toss the sliced apple and diced avocado with the 2 teaspoons lemon zest so they stay bright and do not darken.

  4. Add the baby greens, chopped red onion, toasted walnuts and crumbled blue cheese to the bowl with the apple and avocado.

  5. Pour about two-thirds of the tangerine dressing over the salad and toss gently until evenly coated. Add more dressing to taste and serve right away.

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. Avocado + mandarin orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lemon + mandarin orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Blue cheese + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together40 recipes

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

  5. Onion + avocadotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,653 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mandarin orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, walnut, blue cheese, lemon, apple, avocado, garlic):

  1. Grapebetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Pearbetter flavor fit
  4. Mandarin orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, walnut, blue cheese, lemon, apple, avocado, garlic. 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).