Choose-Your-Own Chicory Salad

a go-to salad for the rest of the year

Forget pumpkin spice—chicory season is finally upon us! With their bold, beautiful colors and bitter flavor, chicories offer the perfect canvas for layering sweet, sour, rich flavors, and creamy and crunchy textures onto. (For all these reasons, they’re also an ideal base for Caesar Salad.) I’ve been eating chicory salad with fruits and nuts throughout the autumn for over 20 years now. It’s also one of the dishes I most look forward to making for any holiday meal.

I like to think of chicories as nature’s watercolors. Just as there are many varieties of lettuces (think romaine, little gem, and red oak), there are dozens of varieties of chicories, all of which descend from the wild chicory plant (a form of which, called root chicory, is the source of the coffee additive popular in New Orleans and across the world).

This broad family of bitter greens includes both familiar varieties—Belgian endive, radicchio, frisée and escarole—and more esoteric, if beautiful ones. These less widely-known types are often named for the cities in the Veneto region of Italy from which they hail, including Chioggia, Castelfranco, and Treviso.

While many major grocery stores now carry radicchio, endive and escarole, you’ll likely have to look a little harder to find the more spectacularly colored varieties. Look for them at farmer’s markets and specialty produce markets, or grow your own!

Like so many of the un-recipes we share here, this salad is endlessly adaptable. Use the basic template as a guide. Play with it and make the salad your way, using what you have.

One final thing—over 40 million Americans are set to lose SNAP benefits this weekend due to the government shutdown. For those of us who can, this is a crucial time to donate funds to our local food banks, to Feeding America, or to participate in other forms of mutual aid and take care of the people around us as our government fails to do so. I encourage you to leave information about resources in the comments for us to learn about and share.

---

Vibrant Chicory Salad

all photos by Aya Brackett, with styling by Jillian Knox & Amalia Mariño

For a big salad that’ll serve 6 to 8 people, you’ll need:

• 2 to 3 small heads of chicories of your choice—aim to use a mix of colors and shapes for the most vibrant salad.

  • We used a mix of radicchio (dark purple ball-shape), Castelfranco (light green with purple splatter), Treviso (elongated purple-shape). Samin loves the stunning Rosa del Veneto (pink elongated-shape) variety, but it can be hard to find. The more readily available escarole, frisée, and white or red Belgian endives will all work very nicely!

• About 1 cup of nuts—walnuts, pecans, pistachios and pine nuts will all work great here.

• 1 to 2 types of fall or winter fruit—pomegranate arils, sliced Fuyu persimmon, pears, or apples are all great, or (if you can still get your hands on them) figs work beautifully here too!

  • We combined pomegranate and persimmon for a blend of colors and textures. For this, use 1 small pomegranate and 1 to 2 persimmons, pears or apples or a large handful of figs.

• A small hunk (about 3½ ounces) of softish, not too strong cheese, like Roquefort or goat cheese, at room temperature.

  • We used Roquefort.

• Flaky sea salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

• House Dressing or your own favorite shalloty vinaigrette

---

Trim & wash chicories

• For radicchio, Treviso, Castelfranco, or Rosa del veneto: Cut off any root or stem, then tear off any bruised leaves.

• For frisée or escarole: Shave off the dark green tips with a sharp knife, then tear off any tough outer leaves. You want only the pale green and white, tender hearts for your salad.

• Separate all the chicories into individual leaves, trimming more as needed to detach inner leaves. Tear larger leaves into generous bite-size pieces, but leave smaller leaves whole.

• Wash the chicories in cold water, dry in a salad spinner, then place in a large bowl.

• Cover with a clean, barely damp paper towel and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Toast nuts

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Spread nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet.

• Toast until lightly golden in the center, about 7 to 10 minutes.

• Allow to cool to room temperature.

Prep fruit

• For pomegranate: Use a sharp knife to score the skin in 3 or 4 places. Gently tear along the scores and pull the pomegranate into quarters and remove the seeds. (We know, this can be tricky. Stay tuned for our pomegranate seeding tutorial in this weekends What’s Good!)

• For persimmon: Remove stem and use a vegetable peeler to peel away the tough skin. Quarter, discard core and seeds, then slice into 3/8-inch pieces.

• For pear or apple: Quarter, remove core, then slice into 3/8-inch pieces.

• For figs: Remove stem, then cut into halves (small figs) or quarters (large figs).
  

Toss & season

• Add fruit(s) to the bowl of chicories.

• Add your nut(s) of choice. If using walnuts or pecans, you’ll want to crumble them into the bowl in large pieces.

• Drizzle on a generous amount, then season lightly with salt and pepper.

• Use your hands to toss gently. Make sure all those leaves are evenly coated!

• Taste and add more dressing, salt, or pepper as needed.

• Transfer to a serving platter, if desired.

• Crumble pecan-size pieces of cheese throughout, tossing as needed to distribute.

Serve & enjoy!

---