Bacon And Blue Cheese Salad With Cherry Vinaigrette

Total Time: 20 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 8 ounces mixed salad greens, rinsed,tough stems removed,and dried (baby spinach, arugula, red leaf lettuce, frisã©e, romaine)
• 1/2 small walla walla sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup crumbled oregon blue cheese
• 3/4 lb bing cherries or 3/4 lb other dark sweet cherry
• 1/4 cup wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Recipe

• 1 for the cherry vinaigrette, pit and halve the cherries and set aside half of them to toss with the salad later.
• 2 put the remaining cherries in a food processor or blender with the vinegar and purée until smooth.
• 3 add the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste, and purée for another few seconds.
• 4 transfer the vinaigrette to a small bowl and set aside.
• 5 (a blender will purée the cherries more finely than a food processor; if using the latter, you may want to strain out the bits of cherry skin after processing, pressing on the solids with the back of a rubber spatula to extract as much juice as possib) fry the bacon pieces in a small skillet over medium-high heat until browned and crisp, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.
• 6 scoop them onto paper towels to drain; set aside to cool.
• 7 put the salad greens in a salad bowl or other large bowl and scatter the onion and bacon over the top.
• 8 rewhisk the cherry vinaigrette to blend, and taste for seasoning, adding a bit more salt or pepper if needed.
• 9 drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad, tossing to mix gently and evenly.
• 10 arrange the salad on 4 individual plates and sprinkle the blue cheese and remaining cherries evenly over each portion.
• 11 serve right away.