Cranberry, Apple, and Blue Cheese Salad with Cranberry-Apple Cider Dressing

Simple Apple Cranberry Salad – 🍎🥗🙌 All the flavors of Fall in one gorgeous, hearty, and healthy salad! The easy, tart-and-sweet dressing is just bursting with flavor!

Apple Cranberry Salad Recipe

Say hello to the flavors of fall in this fast, easy, and healthy dried cranberry salad that’s loaded with textures galore. There are sweet honey crisp apples, chewy orange-flavored dried cranberries, salty blue cheese, and crunchy candied pecans made with Fisher Pecan Halves.

The apple cider vinegar salad dressing comes together in 30 seconds in the blender. It’s a tart-and-sweet blend of dried cranberries, apple cider vinegar, honey, and olive oil. So easy but packs so much flavor. It’s thick and coats the salad beautifully.

The salad is great for lunch, as a healthy and fast dinner, and would make a gorgeous side at holiday celebrations and parties for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Apple Cranberry Salad Ingredients

To make this apple salad with dried cranberries, you’ll need:

• Butter lettuce – feel free to substitute any other greens such as Romaine lettuce, baby spinach, or arugula
• Honey Crisp apple – I love the sweet tart flavor of Honey Crisp apples, but you can experiment with whatever you like best. For a more tart taste, use Granny Smith apples instead of a sweet apple
• Orange-flavored dried cranberries – if you can’t find orange-flavored dried cranberries at your local grocery store, regular may be substituted. I found the orange-flavored ones at Trader Joe’s
• Blue cheese crumbles – you can substitute goat cheese or feta cheese if preferred
• Candied Fisher pecans (tutorial linked in recipe card below) – feel free to substitute walnuts, slivered almonds, or even toasted pumpkin seeds
• Apple cider vinegar 
• Honey – the exact amount of honey needed will vary based on how sweet or tart the cranberries are and on personal preference
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper 

Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.

How to Make This Cranberry Apple Salad Recipe

This cranberry apple salad comes together quickly and can be served as a side salad, or you can add your choice of protein to turn it into an entree.

Here’s an overview of how the salad is made:

1. To a large salad bowl, add the lettuce, and top with thin slices of apples, cranberries, pecans, and cheese. Set aside.
2. To the canister of a blender, add all the apple cider vinegar salad dressing ingredients and blend on high power for about 30 seconds, or until combined.
3. Taste dressing, and make any necessary flavor adjustments.
4. Drizzle the dressing over the apple pecan salad. 
5. Add more toppings, if desired, and enjoy!

What to Serve with an Apple Cranberry Salad

Maple Glazed Pork Chops with Sweet Potatoes

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Loaded Zuppa Toscana

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4.60 from 5 votes

Cranberry, Apple, and Blue Cheese Salad with Cranberry-Apple Cider Dressing

By Averie Sunshine

🍎🥗🙌 All the flavors of Fall in one gorgeous, hearty, and healthy salad! The easy, tart-and-sweet dressing is just bursting with flavor!

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes minutes

Servings: 2 servings

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Equipment

• 1 Large Bowl
• 1 Blender

Ingredients  

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Salad

• ▢ 4 cups butter lettuce, romaine or your favorite blend of greens may be substituted
• ▢ 1 cup honeycrisp apples, diced (from about 1 medium apple; Fuji, Gala, Braeburn, etc. may be substituted)
• ▢ ¾ cup orange-flavored dried cranberries, regular dried cranberries may be substituted
• ▢ ¾ cup candied Fisher pecans (use this recipe
• ▢ ¾ cup blue cheese crumbles, gorgonzola or feta cheese may be substituted

Dressing

• ▢ ½ cup orange-flavored dried cranberries, regular dried cranberries may be substituted
• ▢ ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• ▢ 2 to 4 tablespoons honey
• ▢ 2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
• ▢ ½ teaspoon pepper, or to taste

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Instructions 

Salad:

• To a large bowl, add the lettuce, and top with apples, cranberries, pecans, and cheese. Set aside.

Dressing:

• To the canister of a blender, add all ingredients, and blend on high power for about 30 seconds, or until combined. The cranberries won’t break down completely and having some texture retained is okay. The amount of honey needed will vary based on how sweet or tart the cranberries are and on personal preference. I prefer less oil rather than more, but add to taste.
• Taste dressing and make any necessary flavor adjustments (more salt, pepper, etc.).
• Drizzle over salad and serve immediately.

Notes

• All salad topping amounts are flexible, add more or less of each topping based on personal preferences.
• Extra dressing will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 521kcal, Carbohydrates: 49g, Protein: 9g, Fat: 35g, Saturated Fat: 8g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 26g, Cholesterol: 19mg, Sodium: 561mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 41g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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More Fall Salad Recipes:

Apple, White Cheddar, and Spinach Salad with Honey-Apple Cider Vinaigrette — The flavors just POP in this fast, easy, and healthy salad!

Roasted Squash Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette – A hearty, comforting, and satisfying salad that’s healthy and easy!

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad — Goodbye mayo-loaded, mushy, boring potato salad. Hello to a Mexican-inspired potato salad full of flavor and texture with corn, black beans, peppers, and cilantro!

Spinach and Artichoke Quinoa Salad – All the flavors of classic spinach and artichoke dip are in this HEALTHY salad! The only thing that’s missing is tons of fat and calories! FAST, EASY, naturally gluten-free, vegetarian, and tastes DELISH!

Roasted Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad – An EASY, healthy, lettuce-less salad with roasted curried cauliflower and chickpeas as the STARS! Topped with raisins, pistachios, cilantro, and a DELISH tangy Greek yogurt dressing!

Kale Caesar Salad with Fried Chickpeas — This isn’t a traditional Caesar salad and that’s what I love about it. I used kale rather than romaine and fried chickpeas instead of croutons.

Post is brought to you by Fisher. The recipe, image, text, and opinions expressed are my own. #ThinkFisher