Breathe a little life and color into your Meatless Mondays with this immaculate Spring Mix Salad with roasted cherries, watermelon radish, gooseberries, spiced nuts, burrata, & mango vinaigrette.

Ingredients:

6 cups spring mix (approximately 15 oz)

½- ¾ watermelon radish, peeled and sliced

6 oz gooseberries

8 oz burrata

For Roasted Cherries:

20 pitted fresh cherries

2 tsp finely minced mint

1 tsp light brown sugar

sprinkle of salt

1 tbsp olive oil 

For Spiced Nuts:

 ½ cup shelled pistachios

½ cup premium walnuts

⅛ cup water

¼ cup light brown sugar

1 tbsp ghee or butter

½ tsp Kashmiri chili powder

½ tsp coriander powder

¼ tsp salt

For Vinaigrette:

¼ cup canned mango purée

2 tbsp white vinegar

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp lime juice

*spice mix

*jaggery syrup

5 tbsp olive oil

*For spice mix:

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 Guntur Sannam chili or ½ other dried Indian chili

*For jaggery syrup:

¼ cup water cup water

1 tbsp jaggery or dark brown sugar

Instructions:

To roast the cherries, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. It is important to line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper as the juices will run when you are roasting the cherries.

Place the pitted cherries on the baking sheet. Sprinkle on the mince mint, brown sugar, and salt. Drizzle the olive oil over the cherries and stir to combine.

Roast for 20-25 minutes, then set aside to cool.  

To make the spiced nuts, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then, heat the water, light brown sugar, and ghee in a small skillet. Simmer until it reduces a little, but is not yet syrupy.

While that is warming, place your nuts in a bowl and sprinkle with the chili powder, coriander powder, and salt.  

Pour the sugar and ghee mixture over the spiced nuts, mix to evenly coat, then spread on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 6-7 minutes. Stir and let cool to use later.

To make the spice mix for the vinaigrette, lightly toast the cumin and coriander seeds with the chili in a small skillet. Then, when cool, place in a spice grinder and blend to a fine powder and set aside.

To make the jaggery syrup, simmer the jaggery or brown sugar with the water until the sugar dissolves and the liquid reduces by half. Set this aside.

To make the vinaigrette, whisk together all the ingredients, except the olive oil in a bowl. Then slowly pour in the olive oil, whisking continuously until the vinegar and oil combine. If you are not serving the vinaigrette right away, simply whisk it again before using.

To assemble the salad, place the spring mix on a large serving bowl or platter, place the roasted cherries, watermelon radish slices, gooseberries, and spiced nuts evenly over the greens. Tear pieces of the burrata and place on top of the salad. Drizzle the mango vinaigrette immediately before serving.

Recipe by Veda Sankaran

Jalsa By Veda