Fall Salad With Apples, Cheddar and Crispy Sage Recipe (2024)

Use plenty of sage. This recipe has quite a few steps, but excellent for a Sunday dinner, especially if you have a pot roast or a roasted chicken in the oven and have a bit of time to kill. Won’t taste like anything you have made since last Winter. Welcome to Autumn.

I like the idea of this, but I think it needs some tweaks. For one thing, when I added the honey mustard to the sage pan, even though it was off the heat for a couple of minutes, it was still too hot and the honey seized up like candy. I had to toss it and start over. Next time I would cut the apples to bitesized pieces, and use less lemon. I would also bump up the sage, as Mike in Indy suggests. I couldn't taste it. I added some chopped glazed pecans to the salad and think they were a good fit.

This was basically great but I was disappointed in the sage leaves, which seemed to entirely lose their taste after frying, although they were straight off the plant and flavorful before cooking. I don't think I overcooked them...they were crisp but not burnt...but next time I might try wilting only, although that loses the crisp contrast. Any suggestions?

Mainemom, I’ve had good results spreading lightly salted sage leaves on a baking pan and letting them toast in the oven at moderate heat till fragrant. Then turn heat off and let residual heat finish crisping. No oil necessary. A convection oven would be nice I imagine. They will be fragile, but I prefer crispy to chewy oily. I don’t have an air fryer….anybody?

This is a wonderful salad. Just full of fall! Use an apple that will hold up—the Cosmic Crisp was a great choice. I had no problem adding the mustard and honey to the warm oil (unlike a previous poster). We paired this with another NYT Cooking recipe (focaccia with herbed honey plums and prosciutto) for an extraordinary dinner.

Really good if a little high maintenance. Think about adding nuts

I used an air fryer (about 1min at 375) to crisp up the sage and then combined oil, mustard, shallot, lemon and apple cider vinegar to make the “lazy” version of this salad

Good. Made as suggested, used red onion instead of shallot

Only some of my sage leafs made it into the salad. The rest, I ate, salted. Wonderful. The salad was very nice, but I agree with someone who suggested adding toasted pecans - the sage loses crispiness when the salad is dressed. Lovely, easy.

Excellent salad. I agree that if you like sage bump it up!

Very delicious! I sprinkled a few crushed pecans over the top.

Olive oil is a classic pairing with sage. I would think a more neutral oil risks changing the balance of flavours too much here. (The heat need not be excessively high.) Similarly, I’d lean toward walnuts as a tried and true foil for the sage, if you like that extra bit of crunch.

Phenomenal! Wow!!

This salad was a great success - added toasted pine nuts and extra sage! Guests wanted to eat the sage garnish just on its own.

Loved this. Suppose more sage would be good but the extra work was worth it!

Great!! Made exactly as the recipe said. Added the sage leaves at the very end right before serving.

Even without the parsley and using fewer applies, this is a very good salad. I also used grated sharp cheddar and less than called for, since my husband does not like too much cheese. I added a sprinkling of roasted, salted pecans with the sage leaves.

Delicious. Added fennel as well, to make the salad a little more robust.

This turned out really well… I suffer from “boring salad syndrome” and this definitely broke me out of the salad slump. It comes together pretty quickly in my opinion. I made it as part of a dinner train for a friend and after tasting I made it again for my family.

This is a perfect fall salad. I followed the recipe as written, only adding a handful of toasted walnuts. It was delicious! A couple of tips: whisk the mustard and honey into the oil to emulsify and use Beecher’s Flagship cheese if you can find it!

Amazing!!! I used extra sharp aged cheddar, added endive, thinly sliced red radishes, cucumbers, and toasted walnuts. What a wonderful fall salad!!

Try using sage Derby in lieu of plain cheddar to up the sage flavor.

Diced apple is easier to handle at the table. I used feta rather than cheddar for the salt and texture. Great fall salad.

Used half apples and have Fuyu persimmon and it made it more beautiful, however I diced rather than sliced the fruit. I served by arranging the butter lettuce on plates then spooning on the fruit mixture. I was not that crazy about the fried sage and guests didn’t seem to appreciate it much either (as a topping, not mixed in). Unfortunate since I made a lot of extra fried sage. All that frying also caused the oil to eventually get too hot and start to smoke, so watch for that & reduce temp.

I prefer to make cheddar crisps as a topping. The dressing benefits from a shot of balsamic, and a shower of pistachios is a nice way to add a vegetarian protein.

This was such a phenomenal salad. There are few times when I feel I can achieve restaurant quality food at home and this is one of them.

Really good, easy recipe. I added some strips of panko-fried chicken to appease the family carnivores and it went well together.

Delicious! My new favorite autumn salad. I first made this for a dinner party and it was a crowd pleaser.

Outstanding recipe! I paired it with oven roasted chicken breasts, which definitely worked, but the flavor profile of the salad begs for pork. Next time it will be sliced pork tenderloin.

To supplement my earlier note (now that I’ve… actually made the thing), this salad is a winner. The balance of flavours and textures is wonderful. I made it as written, with two small changes: I did add a small handful of toasted walnuts, coarsely crushed (nice, but probably not essential), and when I took the oil off the heat, I let it cool just a bit before adding the mustard, in view of comments about the mustard not emulsifying easily with the hot oil. Use a good cheddar you really like.