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Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

by Ann
11 comments

Pomegranate Walnut Salad with dried cranberries, apricots, mixed cheeses and Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

Pomegranates are so beautiful. I’ve been entranced with them since I studied Greek mythology way back in junior high school.

Then when we lived in California, our neighbors had a pomegranate tree … one long branch of the tree stretched into our yard and that one branch always gave us plenty of pomegranates. Not that it really mattered, because the neighbors let us go into their yard and pick pomegranates whenever we wanted. My kids used to sell pomegranates like some kids sell lemonade. The neighbors loved it.


When you open up a pomegranate, it is full of all these gorgeous little jewels; it looks like a treasure chest to me. And the taste of the little jewels when you bite into one … oh my.

If you want to make this salad, you will first need to make the Cranberry Raspberry Vinegar, and that takes about a week … just giving you fair warning. You could do some clever substitutions, perhaps, but the jewel-toned vinegar with the little pomegranate jewels in the salad is really quite nice.

Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Mixed Cheeses and Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

with Dried Cranberries, Apricots and Mixed Cheeses

  • Organic Herb Mix (or mixed greens)
  • Pomegranate Seeds
  • Shards of Parmesan Cheese (cut very thin slices off the edge of a hunk of parmesan)
  • Toasted Walnuts, chopped roughly
  • Dried Cranberries
  • Chopped dried Apricots
  • Blue cheese crumbles

First make the dressing and let it set to mix the flavors while you prepare the salad.

Fill the salad bowl 3/4 full with the organic herb mix, and sprinkle with remaining ingredients as you please. Drizzle with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette.

Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

  • 3/4 cup cranberry raspberry vinegar (recipe here)
  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 Tablespoon strawberry or raspberry jam
  • 2 Tablespoons Dijon, Spicy Brown or other fancy mustard (I used garlic peppercorn mustard)
  • 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground mustard seed
  • A couple of basil leaves, a small sprig of rosemary, and several sprigs of fresh dill weed

Mix all ingredients together in a handi chopper and whir until the herbs and garlic are well chopped and everything is mixed well. Refrigerate any of the remaining dressing.

Pomegranate Walnut Salad with dried cranberries, apricots, mixed cheeses and Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette

This recipe was shared at Midnight Maniac Meatless MondaysTotally Tasty Tuesdays, and Full Plate Thursdays.

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11 comments

Melissa Placzek December 19, 2011 - 11:40 pm

beautiful! love the colors. so festive!

Reply
Charles December 20, 2011 - 3:49 am

Wow, how fun to live somewhere where you can actually have pomegranates growing in the garden! When I was young, the most exciting thing we could get was apple and pear trees, and a few berries 🙁

Looks and sounds delicious 🙂

Reply
Ann December 20, 2011 - 9:45 am

Oh it was SO fun! We had lemons and grapefruits and peaches too … I have no pomegranates anymore … just mulberries and a few raspberries, but I revel in those every June.

Reply
Helene Dsouza I Masala Herb December 20, 2011 - 8:38 am

This looks great! I was scanning the ingredients, happily realizing that I have most at home or I can buy it, until i read cranberry and apricot. impossible for me to get. what would u subsitute them with?

Reply
Ann from Sumptuous Spoonfuls December 20, 2011 - 9:08 am

Helene where do you live? What kinds of fruits do you have? Berries? The cranberries are tart, so you could substitute another tart berry–or you could leave the dried ones out of the salad and just use pomegranate seeds. You could substitute a peach or other orange-fleshed fruit for the apricots. For the vinaigrette, just make the vinegar with a different red berry.

Reply
Pat December 22, 2011 - 11:18 am

The recipe for this looks delicious! Love the colors in the salad. This would be heathy too.
Thanks for sharing. Pat

Reply
Miz Helen December 23, 2011 - 6:12 pm

I just love the combination of the Pomegranate and Cranberries in this wonderful salad. We would just love this salad! Thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday. I am wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas!
Come Back Soon,
Miz Helen

Reply
Rosemary Pear Crostini with Walnuts & Pomegranate « Sumptuous Spoonfuls January 10, 2012 - 6:33 pm

[…] salad dressing (I used my maple cranberry vinaigrette from this post, but I think just about any vinaigrette would […]

Reply
zelda January 17, 2012 - 1:43 am

Oh my. This is gorgeous Love the combinations! Please share more of these Tastes! Thank you

Reply
Tulip & Violet Salad with Salmon Cucumber Toasts « Sumptuous Spoonfuls April 5, 2012 - 6:27 am

[…] was sure I had some berry vinaigrette in my fridge, but I couldn’t find it and settled for my maple cranberry vinaigrette. It worked out beautifully […]

Reply
» Cranberry Raspberry Vinegar Sumptuous Spoonfuls December 15, 2013 - 8:23 am

[…] Pomegranate Walnut Salad with Maple Cranberry Vinaigrette […]

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