Candied Pecan Frisée Salad
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This Pecan Frisée Salad is topped with apples, candied pecans and drizzled with brown butter for a sweeter fall-flavored salad.
You said you wanted a fall salad, so I present to you this candied pecan frisée salad! It’s a fairly simple salad recipe—a salad without all the bells and whistles—because honestly, if I’m going to take the time to make a salad at home, it needs to be BASIC in the best way.
Also don’t worry, I spent a good amount of time Googling the difference between endive and frisée, and I’m 92 percent sure that this is a frisée salad. It’s confusing! Anyway, I love love love fall salads because apples and lettuce make far more sense to me than berries and lettuce. … but that’s probably just me.
This frisée salad is topped with apple, goat cheese and candied pecans. Ohhhh my oh my, candied pecans for sure remind me of my childhood because we used to make them around the holidays and the kitchen would always smell so good. Please tell me you’re a fan?
For this salad, you’re going to want to start by roasting the pecans, which you can do far in advance (think: days before) to make your life easier. The pecans are coated in maple syrup, sugar and a little salt and take about 25 minutes to roast. When they come out of the oven, they’ll be perfectly roasted and caramelized and sugary just the way pecans should be, and just know that you can store the pecans in a glass or plastic container at room temperature and they should last awhile (well, if you don’t eat them all like I did).
Now the dressing I used for this salad is a tad unconventional because the dressing I used is actually brown butter. Say whaaaat? I know, I know. You see, I’d heard of and seen plenty of brown butter recipes before, but I didn’t truly understand the greatness of it until I used it in this brussels sprouts salad. Now, I kind of want to put it on everything!
Tip: be sure to stir the brown butter fairly frequently; otherwise, it’ll stick to the bottom of your saucepan and be pain to clean (there’s a chance this happened to me).
Since this salad is drizzled with a little brown butter, it’s basically like a dessert salad. Miguel kept saying how good it was and I was like yeah because of 1) the candied pecans and 2) brown butter dressing! I mean honestly, what’s not to love?
Candied Pecan Frisée Salad
Ingredients
for the pecans:
- 1 cup raw pecans
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp cane sugar
- 1 tsp salt
for the salad:
- 4-6 cups frisée
- 1/4 cup goat cheese
- 1 apple, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup butter*
Instructions
- For the pecans: Preheat oven to 225°. Place pecans on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 5 minutes. Then, place pecans in a ziploc bag and add the syrup, sugar and salt. Seal the bag, then shake until pecans are coated. Pour pecans out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast pecans for 20 minutes. Allow pecans to cool before adding to the salad.
- For the dressing: melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently until butter is slightly brown. Pour butter into a bowl and set aside, allowing it to cool.
- To assemble: place lettuce in a bowl and top it with the apple, goat cheese, candied pecans, and then drizzle a SMALL amount of brown butter over top. A little bit goes a long way!
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Stunningly delicious. I used arugula instead of frisee. This is a holiday good recipe.
Thanks for the comment!
This looks like it would be such a great salad for the Thanksgiving table! I love frisee and think it’s totally underrated 😉
I’d say it’s definitely a “frisée” salad too! and nothing better for halloween than a salad that also feels like you get to eat a bit of candied nuts on it. Best of both worlds!