Whisk the Dressing ingredients together to emulsify.
Arrange your salads on plates. I layered mine this way: radicchio, carrot, asparagus, beets, walnuts and bleu cheese.
Drizzle each salad with dressing and serve.
Radicchio Beet Salad
Serves 4
- 6-8 medium beets
- 1 bunch radicchio, cored and chopped into pieces a little bit less than an inch in size
- 1 carrot, shaved
- 1 bunch asparagus, cut into inch-sized pieces, lightly blanched in boiling water for about a minute, then rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain well.
- ½ cup toasted walnuts. Note: if you’re in a hurry, it’s easy to lightly toast your nuts in the microwave. Just cook them one minute at a time until you get the desired toastiness. I toasted mine for two minutes total.
- ¼ cup bleu cheese, crumbled (optional)
- Make the Poppy Seed Dressing and set aside.
Poppy Seed Salad Dressing:
- 1/3 cup cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup orange juice along with 1 Tb of orange zest
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1-2 Tb poppy seeds
- salt and pepper
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 Tb honey
In a saucepan, cover the beets water by 2inches, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook until the beets are tender (about 20 minutes or so, depending on the actual size of the beets). They’re ready once you can pierce them with a fork or a little knife.
