Endive Salad Recipe with Pears and Blue Cheese

I love a great endive salad recipe with pears and blue cheese. This classic French endive salad has varying textures and flavors to make it interesting, delicious, and still incredibly simple to whip up in a jiff!

Belgian Endive Salad

While I love an arugula salad or kale salad, it feels refreshing to change things up every now and then by using some Belgian endive to make a “green” plate.

Recipes like this endive salad are perfect when I’m looking for a light meal that’s visually appealing, tasty, and easy to put together. You can also make this salad when you’re entertaining guests because it’s definitely a stunner that’s aesthetically attractive.

These days, you can find Beglian endive pretty much anywhere. I’ve seen it at my local Ralph’s (Kroger) store, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. To prepare them for this salad, I simply cut the endive in half lengthwise, then separate the leaves and rinse them under cool running water.

When I mix Belgian endive into another green, like arugula or mixed greens, I further cut the endive into thin shavings so that they mix in more easily. But for this endive salad recipe with pears and blue cheese, they’re best left in their whole leaf form.

Pears, Blue Cheese, and Pecans

The classic French version of this salad is often made with pears, Roquefort cheese (a type of blue cheese), and nuts (typically walnuts). It’s a great combo because the endive is bitter, the pears are sweet, the cheese is salty and tangy, and the nuts add a good crunch.

The salad might be served with something like a ham and cheese tartine or a poached egg to turn it into a meal.

I typically make this salad when I want something really light to eat, so instead of serving something on the side, I just add in some good prosciutto into the salad itself.

Not only does the prosciutto add a little fat to the dish, but the saltiness is divine with the sweet pears.

I’m also a big fan of candied pecans, so I chop up a few of those and add them to the salad too.

Blue Cheese Dressing

For the dressing on this salad, I use my go-to cream-style dressing made from a base of mayonnaise and dijon, and add a little bit of blue cheese to it to complement the salad.

The dressing is really easy to make and is made up of a 2:1 ratio of mayo to dijon mustard, a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, small clove of garlic, salt and pepper, and of course a little blue cheese.

It’s quick, easy, and the perfect amount for a personal-size salad like this.

Endive Salad Recipe with Pears and Blue Cheese

Yield: 1

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 Belgian endive, stem removed, split down the middle lengthwise then leaves separated and rinsed
• 1 - 2 slices of prosciutto
• 1/4 a large bartlett pear, cut into thin slices
• 2 tbsp crumbled blue cheese
• 2-3 candied pecans

for the dressing

• 1 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 small clove garlic, finely minced
• 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
• juice of 1/4 a lemon, or to taste
• 1 tbsp crumbled blue cheese
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Arrange the Belgian endive leaves on your plate, placing them in any kind of pattern you desire. A radial pattern works really well.
2. Tear the prosciutto into smaller pieces that you can wrap around the pear slices. Arrange the pears on top of the endive leaves.
3. Add the crumbled blue cheese and candied pecans to the top.
4. Whisk the dressing ingredients together; drizzle over salad.