This endive salad with radicchio, apple, Porkitos, and hazelnuts is one of my wintertime faves!
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The best fall or winter salad!
Find yourself craving salad in the dead of winter? Well, you’re in luck, ’cause my friends at Whole Foods Market asked me to share one of my faves. This salad’s packed with sweet apples, bitter greens, crunchy nuts, and even Crispy Prosciutto. Plus, if you’ve been looking for the perfect side dish for my Cracklin’ Chicken, this is it!
First things first: Back away from the sallow, mealy tomatoes at the supermarket. Those tomatoes are anemic for a reason: THEY’RE NOT IN SEASON. Instead, pick up produce that’s at its peak deliciousness in the winter.
Second: Don’t buy into the myth that Paleo’s just about gorging on meat. You gotta get your micronutrients and fiber somewhere, so eat your veggies like your mama told you!
Ingredients
Salad
- Porkitos (a.k.a. crispy prosciutto chips): I love the crunch and savoriness these crispy pork chips add to the salad—way better than croutons!
- Raw hazelnuts: Feel free to substitute another nut or pumpkin seeds!
- Radicchio: halved, cored, and thinly sliced
- Endive heads: ends trimmed, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
- Pink Lady Apple: Feel free to substitute your favorite crisp and sweet apple!
- Fresh chives
- Fresh Italian parsley
Dressing
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Apple juice (I like Martinelli’s brand the best)
- Apple cider vinegar
- Organic whole grain mustard or Dijon mustard
- Red Boat fish sauce
How to make Endive and Apple Salad
The best part of this salad is the crunchy topping of Porkitos and toasted hazelnuts! Make ’em first.
Check out my recipe for Crispy Prosciutto here.
Forgot to stock up on toasted hazelnuts? No prob—just toast ’em yourself.
Place the raw hazelnuts in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake the nuts at 350°F for 10-15 minutes or until the skins are crackly and you can smell the nuttiness. You can remove most of the papery skin by rubbing your hot nuts in a clean towel. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)
Then, roughly chop the hazelnuts and set aside.
Make the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, apple juice, apple cider vinegar, mustard, and fish sauce in a small bowl.
Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender to blitz all the liquid ingredients together in a flash.
To be honest, you might not use all the dressing, but I always like to err on the side of making extra in case my bitter greens have more bite than usual. Besides, it’s always good to have extra dressing in the fridge.
Combine the chopped radicchio, endive, and apples in a large bowl…
…and toss with ¾ of the dressing. If needed, add more dressing to taste.
Remember: apples start to brown a few minutes after you cut ’em up, so dress them right away or keep them in salted water until you’re ready to make the salad. (Yeah, you heard me right: salted water! You rinse it off before you eat the apples.)
Toss the salad!
Divide the dressed greens onto four platters and crown each salad with Porkitos, toasted hazelnuts, and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.
Dig in!
More fabulous salad recipes
Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2022).
PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD
Endive and Apple Salad
Ingredients
Winter Salad
- 8 Crispy Prosciutto a.k.a. Porkitos
- ¼ cup raw hazelnuts
- 1 medium radicchio ~8 ounces, halved, cored, and thinly sliced
- 2 medium endive heads 4 ounces each, ends trimmed, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
- 2 Pink Lady apples quartered, cored, and thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons minced chives
- 2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
Dressing
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup apple juice I like Martinelli’s brand the best
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon organic whole grain mustard or Dijon mustard be sure to read the label to make sure there aren’t any funny ingredients!
- ¼ teaspoon Red Boat fish sauce
Instructions
- The best part of this salad is the crunchy topping of Crispy Prosciutto and toasted hazelnuts! Make ’em first.
- Forgot to stock up on toasted hazelnuts? No prob—just toast ’em yourself. Place the raw hazelnuts in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake the nuts at 350°F for 10-15 minutes or until the skins are crackly and you can smell the nuttiness. You can remove most of the papery skin by rubbing the hot nuts in a clean towel. Then, roughly chop the hazelnuts and set aside.
- Make the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, apple juice, apple cider vinegar, mustard, and fish sauce in a small bowl. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender to blitz all the liquid ingredients together in a flash. To be honest, you might not use all the dressing, but I always like to err on the side of making extra in case my bitter greens have more bite than usual. Besides, it’s always good to have extra dressing in the fridge.
- Combine the chopped radicchio, endive, and apples in a large bowl and toss with ¾ of the dressing. If needed, add more dressing to taste.
- Divide the dressed greens onto four platters and crown each salad with Porkitos, toasted hazelnuts, and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.
Notes
- Remember: apples start to brown a few minutes after you cut ’em up, so dress them right away or keep them in salted water until you’re ready to make the salad. (Yeah, you heard me right: salted water! You rinse it off before you eat the apples.)
- In the summertime, peaches and nectarines can substitute for the apples!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I punted with this one. I had Prosciutto, radicchio, apples, baby romaine, lemon and avocado. It had never occurred to me to crisp up Prosciutto! I love it! I think it’s my new thing 🙂 I sprinkled the apple cubes with lemon juice, tossed it all together, topped with the Prosciutto, skipped the dressing and the herbs and it was delicious! Bitter! Sweet! Salt! Sour! A flavor wheel carnival!