Blackberry Pear Salad with a creamy lemon vinaigrette, pistachios, and tiny edible lemon slices.
This is a light and summery salad for all occasions! It pairs well witha slice or two of Soft Fluffy French Bread or Sourdough Discard Crackers if you're feeling fancy!
Blackberry Pear Salad
Blackberry Pear Salad is a copycat recipe for a Tre Sorelle salad from an italian style restaurant back home, Pizzeria Limone. Crunchy pistachios, purple onions, fresh basil and fresh parmesan cheese complete this masterpiece. It's traditionally made with three different kinds of cheeses: asiago, pecorino romano, and parmesan. Parmesan alone will work just fine for this salad and it's what I prefer.
Ingredients for Salad
It's a simple mix for the fresh greens. You can use a spring mix or a combination of romaine, spinach, and basil.
- Romaine lettuce, spinach, and basil - can be substituted with a spring mix salad.
- Purple onion
- Pistachios
- Blackberries - fresh
- Pears- fresh
- Lemon - juice and zest of
- Parmesan cheese - fresh please!
- Olive oil
- Mayonnaise
- White wine vinegar
- Honey
- Mustard - optional but delicious
- Salt & pepper
How to assemble:
It's so simple to assemble this easy summer salad recipe! I broke it down into simple steps.
- In a large bowl combine romaine, spinach, onion, pears, blackberries, pistachios, parmesan, tiny sliced lemons, and chopped basil.
- Make vinaigrette by combining lemon juice, olive oil, mayonnaise, white wine vinegar, honey, mustard, and salt and pepper. Whisk it well and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Oil doesn't play well with most liquids, so honey, mustard, and mayonnaise are used as emulsifiers to help coat and bind the oil molecules to the other liquids in the dressing so that they won't separate. Whisk ingredients together vigorously for a few minutes, or I highly recommend blending the dressing for thirty seconds to make it creamy and smooth.
Tips for the best blackberry pear salad:
- Fresh fresh fresh ingredients! I can't single out one ingredient because even the parmesan should be fresh and not the sprinkle canned kind I sometimes like to use for pasta. Same with the lemons. Don't settle for bottled juice!
- Use good quality extra virgin olive oil.
- Make sure everything is sliced thinly. The pears, the onions, the basil, the lemons, and the grated parmesan.
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Blackberry Pear Lemon Salad
Ingredients
Salad:
- 6 cups romaine lettuce, chopped (one head)
- 2-3 cups fresh spinach
- 1 pear, bartlett or green anjou, sliced thinly
- 6 oz blackberries
- ⅛ purple onion, sliced thinly
- ⅓ cup parmesan cheese, very coarsely grated
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil, chopped finely
- ⅓ cup pistachios, chopped
- optional, 2 Tablespoons each of grated Asiago and Pecorino cheese.
- optional, thinly sliced lemon for garnish
Lemon Vinaigrette
- ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice (2 lemons)
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup mayonnaise (I use light or olive oil mayo)
- 1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar (white or rice vinegar work as well)
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- ½ teaspoon yellow mustard
- zest of 2 lemons, about 2 teaspoons.
- pinch of salt and pepper.
Instructions
For the salad:
- In a large serving bowl combine romaine lettuce and spinach. Gently mix in sliced pear, blackberries, purple onion, parmesan cheese, fresh basil, and optional thinly sliced lemon. Sprinkle pistachios over salad. Top with lemon vinaigrette when ready to serve.
For the lemon vinaigrette:
- In a small mixing bowl or blender combine lemon juice, olive oil, mayonnaise, vinegar, honey, yellow mustard, and salt and pepper. I highly recommend using a blender, but if mixing by hand whisk vigorously 2-3 minutes until smooth. If mixing in a blender, mix for 30 seconds to 1 minute until smooth and creamy. Transfer to a salad dressing container until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
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Kati
I am so excited to try your recipe! We moved from UT to TX and I miss Pizzeria Limone so much. I always got this salad cause it’s amazing.
Sara
I miss it too! It's fun to try new places and new foods but I miss a lot of food from back home.
Professor Kitchen
Looks good, but unless I missed something you forgot the blackberries in the recipe.
Sara
Ha! Thank you, the recipe is corrected.