Fennel, Meet Basil Salad
These two are an unlikely pair, but they probably work so beautifully together largely because they didn’t meet on a dating app. This salad includes such stars of the season as carrots and strawberries. In fact, if you have left over roasted carrots from the night before, this salad should only take five minutes to throw together. If not, that’s okay. Roasting instructions come first in this recipe. (Note: don’t worry if your carrots are still quite warm when you throw them on top of the salad, the little bit of heat will make the fennel sing.)
Ingredients:(serves two)
For the salad:
1 bag spring mix or lettuce of choice
5 or so strawberries, sliced
2 carrots chopped, roasted*
6 oz fresh mozzarella
3 tbsp fennel
8 basil leaves
For the dressing:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 ½ tbsp good quality balsamic
2 pinches salt
Instructions:
For the carrots
Preheat oven to 425. Peel raw carrots lightly (the skin is slightly bitter and doesn’t improve with roasting) and cut into ¼ inch thick pieces. Toss with a neutral oil, and season with salt. Place on a baking pan and roast for 20 minutes, or until tender.
Assemble the salad
Start with greens, and build with the rest of the ingredients. Amounts for these ingredients are merely suggestions - if you really love fennel, or strawberries, or mozzarella, feel free to add a little more. Strawberries placed on top of mozzarella slices and basil, and sprinkled with a tad of salt make for a pleasing bite.
For the dressing
The oil and vinegar can be sprinkled on at will, straight from their bottles. Be generous with the balsamic.
Lastly, don’t forget to salt your salads. A little bit of the grainy stuff unlocks flavor!
