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Arugula Salad with Avocado Citrus Vinaigrette

"This is one of those recipes that takes all of about 10 minutes to prep, but comes off as fancy and sophisticated. Great salad if you want to show off while entertaining guests. For a main meal option add grilled salmon or chicken."

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Why it works: Arugula and basil work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 103 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep20 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (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. Whisk together the lime juice, grapefruit juice, rice wine vinegar, honey, sea salt and ground black pepper in a small bowl.

  2. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until the vinaigrette is combined. Stir in the chopped cilantro, mint and basil.

  3. Place the chopped red onion in a small bowl of cold water for 5 minutes to mellow its sharpness, then drain well and pat dry.

  4. Put the baby arugula in a large salad bowl. Add the olives, cherry tomatoes, red onion and diced avocado.

  5. Pour about two-thirds of the vinaigrette over the salad and toss gently so the avocado is coated without breaking apart.

  6. Divide the salad among four plates. Top each with shaved Parmesan and spoon over the remaining vinaigrette before serving.

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. Arugula + basiltop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Avocado + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,117 recipes

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

  3. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,491 recipes

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

  4. Lime + grapefruittop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Pepper + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (avocado, lime, grapefruit, rice wine, vinegar, pepper, olive):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against avocado, lime, grapefruit, rice wine, vinegar, pepper, olive. 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).