Arugula Salad with Peaches and Blue Cheese

There are still a few weeks left of summer and time still to pick up some beautiful summer peaches and make this scrumptiously amazing salad.  And, really, you must.   I don’t know about you, but I just haven’t had enough peaches this summer, and I’m planning on making up for that right here.

The recipe for this gorgeously delicious salad comes to us via the Whole Foods Market website.  The idea of combining peaches, arugula and blue cheese caught my eye immediately, but I did end up doing a little tweaking with the recipe here and there.  The Whole Foods recipe called for a lemon juice vinaigrette which, to me, didn’t seem quite right with the other ingredients, so I used a simple white wine and olive oil vinaigrette.  Then I added a drizzle of balsamic reduction and a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts over the top, and what we ended up with was just so ridiculously good.

You could make this a more substantial meal by adding thin slices of prosciutto (about 3 per person), which the original recipe included, and with a fresh baguette to sop up all those fabulous flavors, this could stand in for a wondrous summer meal.  Sounds divine, no?  Here’s the recipe…

Arugula Salad with Fresh Peaches and Blue Cheese

Click here for a printable recipe

Serves 4

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

4 to 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

6 cups baby arugula
2 peaches, peeled and sliced
4 oz blue cheese
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (or substitute walnuts, almonds or pecans)
coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Place the balsamic vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and let this simmer for about 10 minutes or until it's reduced to about 1/4 cup. Let cool. (it will thicken as it cools so don't let it reduce to far).

Whisk together the vinegar, olive oil and salt.

Place the arugula in a large salad bowl and toss with the vinaigrette.

Top the arugula with the sliced peaches and scatter the blue cheese over the top.  Sprinkle with the pine nuts and then drizzle with the cooled balsamic reduction and a good grinding of coarse black pepper.

Comments

[The Food Hunter]

what a delicious salad and I love the idea of adding the proscuitto.

[Patrice Berry]

Thanks, Theresa. Let me know if you try it with the prosciutto.