Sliced Mandarin & Goat Cheese Salad

This incredibly easy Mandarin and Goat Cheese Salad is filled with bright and sweet flavors, making it invigorating and an absolute delight to eat. This Mandarin and Goat Cheese Salad starts with a crispy bed of spring mix and spinach. From there, crumbled sharp goat cheese, sweet mandarin slices, crunchy honey roasted almonds, and creamy diced avocado are thrown in to make the bulk of the salad. Top it with the homemade Champagne Vinaigrette, and you have got yourself one heck of a salad!

How to Make Honey Roasted Almonds

Roasting the almonds, to create that delicious sweet glaze around them, is actually quite easy! First, we start by adding the honey and oil to a microwave-proof bowl, and popping it into the microwave, and cooking for about 30 seconds. Next, we add the sliced almonds, either blanched or natural, into a mixing bowl, where we then add the honey/oil mixture and a bit of kosher or sea salt on top. We then toss it all to ensure that each almond slice is coated with honey and salt. The coated almonds are then evenly spread out onto a baking sheet with parchment, and then placed into a 350°F oven, for around 20 minutes, stirring every so often! Once out of the oven, sprinkle a little more salt and a bit of sugar on top and toss them. After a quick 20-30 minute cool down period, they are ready to be used! The recipe makes enough almonds for about 4 large salads. As well, these can be stored in an air tight container for about 3 days, and in your freezer for up to 6 months.       

The Champagne Vinaigrette

This Mandarin and Goat Cheese Salad uses a homemade Champagne Vinaigrette that is so incredibly easy to make, and only has 3 ingredients – Champagne vinegar, olive oil, and honey! All of the ingredients are placed into a bowl and whisked until emulsified. Or for an even easier hack, add all of the ingredients into a container, with a lid, place the lid on, and shake, shake, shake! This is one of the best, and easiest, ways to emulsify a salad dressing! While this dressing does not technically have an emulsifying agent, honey sort of acts like one. Due to it’s viscose nature, honey actually works to stabilize the dressing, allowing the droplets of oil to suspend in the honey – similar to how it would in a properly emulsified dressing.

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Now, you may be wondering, such a simple dressing, is it any good? It is absolutely incredible, namely because of the champagne vinegar! Champagne vinegar is, obviously, vinegar that is derived from champagne. It therefore retains many of the attributes that makes champagne so delicious, such as that crisp, fresh taste, as well as slight fruity undertones. Truly a winner for salads. Furthermore, champagne vinegar is also relatively mild in it’s acidity, making it not too overwhelming.

As a little note, I personally enjoy a salad dressing that is quite zippy in flavor. I enjoy equal parts vinegar and olive oil, however if you enjoy a more mild dressing, try substituting 1 tbsp of the champagne vinegar out for 1 tbsp of olive oil.

Variations and Substitutions

• If you do not wish to spend time roasting the almonds, feel free to use plain sliced almonds, or even buying honey roasted almonds at the store.
• Walnuts or pecans be substituted for the almonds, as well.
• If you do not have champagne vinegar, you can substitute it with white balsamic, white wine vinegar, or even apple cider vinegar.
• This salad is absolutely wonderful with grilled chicken on top.
• If you do not wish to use packaged mandarins, feel free to use fresh mandarins, however you may need to peel them quite well to remove the bitter skin and pith.