Winter Endive Blood Orange Salad

A balanced, filling salad for winter featuring bitter endive toned down with sweet blood orange, creamy ricotta and lemon honey dressing. 

Where do you stand on endive? When it comes to winter and early spring greens like frisée, endive and even radicchio I'm firmly over here in camp 'meh'. In fact, I'm nearly one camp over in 'bleh!'. They're bitter with an odd texture and quite frankly it makes them more of a challenge to make into something delicious. But it's worth pondering: how to make bitter endive crave-worthy. And we found the answer.

Back in 2015 we kind of cracked the code to working endive into our kitchen during winter. Basically, it involves cheese and citrus. Always. In our satsuma endive salad recipe we took a sweet citrus, mascarpone and almonds with shredded endive. And with said proven code, I figured it was time for another take on that recipe that embraced some shapes vs shredding. 

So here we are: with endive, cheese and citrus once again because it works damnit. Fat helps cut bitter while citrus helps brighten fat. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

I will also let you in on this secret: I kind of wanted to call this recipe endive nachos. Because the endive leaves hold all the ingredients and you can hypothetically-okay-fine-I-did-this-to-avoid-dishes, use your hands to eat the salad). So in my heart I call this endive nachos, but we both know it's just a salad. 

Winter Endive Citrus Salad

serves 2

Ingredients

• 4 small heads of endive, leaves separated
• 2 small blood oranges, supreme cut or cubed
• 1/4 cup pomegranate kernels
• 1 small stalk fresh mint leaves
• 1/4 cup whole milk ricotta
• 1/2 cup microgreens
• 1 Tablespoon chopped hazelnut

dressing:

• 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon honey 
• salt and pepper

Directions

Chop off base of endive and separate leaves. On a large plate, layer endive, blood orange, pomegranate, fresh mint leaves, microgreens, ricotta, and hazelnut. In a small bowl whisk dressing together. Drizzle over endive salad.