Frisée, apple, bacon and goat cheese salad
This frisée salad with apple, bacon and goat cheese with an apple cider honey mustard vinaigrette, is another salad that came as a result of “what is in the fridge or kitchen & how can I put these ingredients together?”

I had some frisée, some apple bacon – which gave me the idea to add apples-, some goat cheese, parsley, so of course I thought that all those ingredients would make a good salad. I love salads that are creative and that balance well different flavors and textures: salty, sweet, sour,crunchy, etc.
I also really like using fruit in salads (yeah I’m one of those people), most of the salads you find in restaurants have tomatoes –which is technically a fruit-, but it is used so much in salads that it’s not really that creative. Full disclosure, I use tomatoes in many of my salads.
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I love to try using fruits like raspberries, blueberries, pears, oranges, apples, among others. Not as a fruit salad, but rather as a little something that provides some contrast to the other savory ingredients.Also, I’ve discovered that if my kids see a piece of fruit in their salad they suddenly become more excited about eating salad (but my kids are weird like that).
One of the great things about living in WA is the variety and quality of apples that are available. According to the Washington Apple Commission more than half of all apples grown in the US for fresh eating come from orchards in Washington state and Washington apples are sold in all 50 states and more than 50 countries (this is not sponsored, but just something I find really cool about my adoptive state). I also found it interesting that while Americans eat approximately 19 lbs of apples per year, Europeans eat about 46 lbs. I would have guessed it was the other way around.
In Ecuador my favorite type of apple was a very small yellow pinkish one, they were very tart, crunchy and sweet. I also have a thing for green apples, not the Granny Smith variety, but actual unripe green apples. We didn’t have any apple trees on our farm, but I remember going with school friends on hikes through farms and eating way too many green apples, it was probably a good thing since most of the time those apples never ripened that well (the region where we lived in Ecuador was not the best for growing apples).

Anyone who grew up in Ecuador will know that this fascination with green or sour unripe fruits is not that surprising. We love eating different green fruits, from green mangoes to green oranges to grosellas (a Malay gooseberry) with salt. Such a mouthwatering combination! Of course we (kids) were always told that this wasn’t good for us, there was sort of Ecuadorian urban legend that eating too many green fruits with salt would kill your red blood cells and give you cancer. However the whole “don’t do eat that” warning just made us crave unripe fruit + salt even more.
Whenever we would go out on a hike or a walk in the countryside we would always take a little bag of salt with us, just in case we found a mango tree or orange tree on the way and more than finding ripe fruit we felt like we hit gold when we would find green fruit.
This salad is very easy to make, if you don’t have frisee you can use any other salad greens, I made the vinaigrette with apple cider vinegar because I wanted to create a connection between the apples and the vinaigrette but it will also be good with a basic white wine vinegar.Also, since the bacon is very salty you really don’t need to add hardly any salt to the salad dressing.

Frisée, apple, bacon and goat cheese salad
Ingredients
- 1 bunch of frisée washed and broken into pieces
- 1 apple core removed and sliced
- 6 oz bacon cut in small pieces and sautéed until crispy
- 4 oz goat cheese crumbled
Apple cider honey mustard vinaigrette
- 1 ½ tbs apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp Dijon style mustard
- 1 tsp honey
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 garlic clove crushed
- 1 tbs finely chopped parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients for the vinaigrette or salad dressing in a jar, close it tight and shake until the ingredients are well mixed.
- Place the frisée, sliced apple, bacon and goat cheese in a salad bowl.
- Pour the dressing or vinaigrette over the salad and toss well.
- Serve immediately.
Preparation photos for this frisée, apple, bacon and goat cheese salad








Other salads you might like:
Mango, avocado and arugula salad
Poached pear and goat cheese salad
Watercress salad with avocado, orange and goat cheese
Spinach raspberry and gorgonzola salad
Layla querida:
Buscaba una receta fácil y fresca para acompañar mi almuerzo… me quedé leyendo la historia de tu camino a la escuela, y en los paseos llevar una fundita con sal, jaja,ja…me encantó! Ahora me voy a cocinar, besos! PD: Me encanta la fotografia que utilizas. Mafi
Ahhh, los buenos tiempos de andar por los montes con la fundita de sal! Que recuerdos!
Really delicious salad! Made it for a dinner party and all agreed it was perfect in every way. Fresh, nourishing, tang and sweet and salty! This is a really good salad!
looks delicious! cant wait to try it!
I love the look of the salad. But my daughter will not eat friisee lettuce. She says it is too bitter. If it is in a mix of salad greens, she will pull out every piece of it.
another fabulous creation of yours! Looks delicious!
Oh, sour fruits with coarse salt is the best! It’s the same way in the Philippines… although, i don’t think the adults discouraged children from eating those. The adults also join in on the fun! =D
Now that is a perfect salad – has all of my favorites!!!
Heavens your pictures are sublime, Laylita! I know EXACTLY how hard it is to make a salad look ‘casual’ and yet so exquisite. Beautiful images, every one… the step-by-step ingredients shots are so inspiring too. Really great photography – love your use of light and color.
A delightful looking salad! Great flavor combo!
Cheers,
Rosa