Black & Blue Spring Salad with Honey-Roasted Pecans and Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette is a fresh and flavorful salad that's perfect for spring.
I’m fairly confident that spring, and thus fresh salad-season, is just around the corner. When it officially arrives (after the inevitable late-season snowstorm Iowa has a knack for throwing our way!) we’ll be ready with Black & Blue Spring Salad with Honey-Roasted Pecans and Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette!
The name is as big of a mouthful as each bite of this gorgeous, flavor-packed salad!
Berry-Packed Spring Salad
Homemade, lightly-sweetened Honey-Roasted Pecans and a sweet-tart Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette join fresh blackberries and really good crumbled blue cheese on a bed of spring mix lettuce in this elegant appetizer salad.
Want to make it a full meal? Add roasted shrimp, grilled chicken, or a juicy steak.
The recipe is based on the Market Salad from Whole Foods which combines spring mix lettuce with walnuts, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. It’s a stellar combo for sure, but my version takes things up a notch with the inclusion of Honey-Roasted Pecans and a fresh Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette.
You’ll love every crispy, creamy, sweet-tart bite!
Start by making the Honey-Roasted Pecans — they are SO easy and SO impressive.
Simply melt butter in a bowl then add honey and stir to combine. Add whole pecans then stir to coat.
Spread the pecans onto a silpat or parchment paper-lined baking sheet then bake for 5-6 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the nuts are golden brown and fragrant. Sprinkle lightly with salt when they’re fresh out of the oven then cool completely.
Once cool, the pecans have a fabulously light and sweet crunch. They’re so delicious that you might as well make a double batch because you’ll lose half to snacking!
Next make the Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette, which can be made up to several days ahead of time. It gets better and better as it sits in the fridge.
Add fresh blackberries and sugar in a food processor or blender then pulse to crush the berries slightly. Let the berries and sugar sit and get juicy for a minute or two.
Next add balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, honey, salt and pepper then process or blend until the dressing is smooth. Taste then adjust salt and pepper if necessary.
Next crumble high quality blue cheese, like Iowa’s own Maytag Blue Cheese, to top the salad with.
Blue cheese is very strong so you’ll only need a bit crumbled on top of each salad.
If you don’t love blue cheese, feel free to use creamy chevre (aka goat cheese — honey chevre would be divine in here), or crumbled feta cheese.
Last step is to divide spring mix lettuce between plates then top with the honey-roasted pecans, blue cheese crumbles, and tons of fresh blackberries. Drizzle with the homemade berry-balsamic vinaigrette and you’re set!
Like I said, this salad is the perfect starter for a meal or would make a killer entree salad with the addition of grilled or sauted shrimp, chicken, or steak. I vote for steak. Blue cheese + steak? Winning!
Ingredients
- 5 oz spring mix lettuce
- 12 oz blackberries, could use blueberries
- 3 oz blue cheese crumbles, could use chevre or feta cheese
For the Honey-Roasted Pecans:
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1/2 Tablespoon butter
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- salt
For the Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette:
- 1/2 cup blackberries
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper
Directions
For the Honey-Roasted Pecans:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter to a small mixing bowl then add honey and pecans. Stir to coat then spread pecans out on a silpat or parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake for 5-6 minutes, or until golden brown and fragrant (watch carefully so they don't burn). Sprinkle lightly with salt then set aside and let cool completely — can be made ahead of time.
For the Berry-Balsamic Vinaigrette:
- Add blackberries and sugar to a food processor or blender then process or blend until berries are crushed. Let sit for a minute then add remaining ingredients and process or blend until smooth. Set aside — can be made ahead of time.
- Divide lettuce between plates then top with blackberries, blue cheese crumbles, and honey-roasted pecans. Drizzle with berry-balsamic vinaigrette then serve.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are estimates only. Please read our full nutrition information disclaimer.
Can I meet the dressing a day ahead of time? Making it for Easter tomorrow.
Absolutely, Mary Anne!
Very good. Will be making it again.
We hosted a Kentucky Derby dinner with friends and I served this salad. All reactions were very favorable and there were no leftovers. It will be on my “go to” list of salads.
Just tried this recipe for a 4th of July party– hope everyone likes it! I did notice though that my dressing came put a lot darker than yours and quite a but thickrr– it’s almost a smoothie consistency rather than a vinaigrette dressing. Any suggestions on what may have gone wrong or that I could change for the futute?
I’m making this salad for our Dinner Group tonight but the pecans are quite sticky and not as toasted as I had thought they should be. Does that seem right? Although they’ve already cooled I’m putting them back in to try to get them more toasty. I had tripled the recipe so it seemed like maybe I had too much of the butter and honey mixture on the pan. I’ve transferred them to a fresh silpat leaving the excess mixture off. Hoping that will do the trick. Any thoughts or tips for me?
It sounds like maybe there were too many on one pan and they steamed instead of baked. If you pop them back in in a few smaller batches hopefully that should help!
Transferring them to a new silpat with less of the honey mixture and retoasting them did the trick. Everyone loved the salad! Thanks so much for sharing your inspirations :)
Oh good! So glad they worked out in the end!
I bet this would be delish with a piece of seared salmon on top!!
interesting once again almost no one has prepared the recipe only commented on there impressions of reading the recipe.
On the berries do you use 1/2 on the salad dressing as described in the section on salad dressing and an additional 12 oz as garnish for the salad. Or do you use a total of 12 oz and used what is left over from the dressing as garnish. 3 0z of berry garnish per salad is about 15 blackberries per salad which seems alot.
Use the entire dressing recipe to dress the entire salad – there might be some leftover, it just depends on how much dressing you like on your salads.
Wow, this is gorgeous! Love the bright colors. Fresh berries are so wonderful on top of a salad – especially blackberries. That vinaigrette looks awesome, too!
This looks so good! Just found your blog and I recently moved to Iowa from Los Angeles! It’s a big change but it’s pretty cool. Can’t wait to try some of your recipes :)
I love this! It looks so healthy and delicious! Such a staple of IGE!
-Ashley
http://www.ashleykiraand.blogspot.com
Should the pecans be raw, or can they be roasted?
Mine were raw – sorry, should have specified in the recipe!
Just used those nuts mixed with roasted butternut squash and goat cheese. So good it hurts!
We made this salad for dinner last night! I used a mixture of raspberries & blackberries, and used meyer lemon olive oil in the dressing. I doubled the dressing recipe and used half to marinate chicken breasts, then grill them. It was amazing! My 7 & 4 year old boys gobbled it up! Watch how many pecans you make…they were addicting! We had to have turtle sundaes for dessert with the extras I made!