roasted butternut squash chopped salad with hot honey bacon and apple cider dressing.
the most filling fall salad, packed with leafy kale, crunchy brussels sprouts, soft roasted butternut squash, and sharp gorgonzola cheese. perfect for the thanksgiving table or as a weeknight entree.
Makes: 4 servings Prep time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes
Everyone could use a solid salad recipe, right? Like soup, salads are mega-customizable, never get old, and can be made in advance and paired with a litany of things. Yeah, I love salad.
Most of my salads are a leafy base, a carb, a little bit of fat — usually avocado — and lots of protein. I love beans, shredded chicken, shrimp, and even ground beef (taco salads, of course). This salad features bacon, smeared with hot honey and baked until crispy, then paired with black beans for some additional fuel. It’s perfect, a little different, and works seamlessly with the roasted squash.
Making a chopped salad efficiently
The prep time is lengthier here because the entire salad needs chopping, peeling, whisking, and draining. Start with the butternut squash and peel it, then dice it and toss onto a sheet pan. On a separate sheet pan, prepare the bacon, and then roast both at once. There. Got the roasting out of the way!
While those are roasting, chop everything else. Drain the beans in a colander, massage the kale, and slice the Brussels. Tear or chop the kale and toss with the Brussels, then toss with the dressing. Sprinkle in the beans and Gorgonzola, then right on cue, take the squash and bacon out of the oven. Can I promise it’ll be this seamless the first time? Maybe not, but once you do it once, you’ll be smooth-sailing the next time.
Swapping ingredients
There are a lot of elements here, and it’s okay not to like them all. I love stinky Gorgonzola and chewy kale, but I totally understand not liking these, too! I’ve listed out the many swaps for each ingredient in the list below.
The dressing
This dressing! It’s easy and so fall-forward thanks to the apple cider. Yup, like the juice. It’s a vinaigrette, essentially, and just requires some whisking or blending to emulsify together. If you want to skip making dressing from scratch, just opt for any lemony vinaigrette at the store.
butternut squash chopped salad ingredients
butternut squash: Use a small squash — 2 or 3 pounds is plenty. There are very small varieties of butternut squash that are only about 5 inches long, use them if you can find them! You don’t need an overwhelming amount of squash here.
The easiest way to work with butternut squash here is to peel it, slice it, then dice the slices into cubes. Try not to sweat the sizes and shapes too much.
Butternut can easily be swapped for sweet potatoes for almost exactly the same taste and texture. You can also try pumpkin or acorn squash.
bacon: You can use whatever bacon you love, but I highly recommend center-cut thick strips. These hold the honey really well and cook for the same amount of time as the squash, so everything can be seamless. Plus, you’ll have a meatier salad, literally.
hot honey: I use Mike’s hot honey. It’s not the cheapest anymore — it used to be less then $8! — but worth having around the house. You can make your own hot honey in a pinch, too: just mix honey and cayenne or red pepper flakes until the honey meets your desired spice level.
kale: The trick to using kale in salads is to massage the kale first, which I usually do when adding the dressing. If you still can’t stand raw kale, just swap it out for chopped romaine, spinach, or a mix of arugula and romaine.
brussels sprouts: Kind of a surprise ingredient, and one that is easily omittable if you hate the sprouts. Yes, you can eat them raw, which is one of my favorite ways to have Brussels sprouts. They’re crunchy, salty, and add kind of a peppery taste to the mix. They take a little while to slice, but you don’t need many to make a difference, so give it a try or swap for frisée.
black beans: Picking a type of bean for a salad might seem pointless, but trust me, some work better than others in certain salads. I love a kidney bean in my cobbs, but need a garbanzo in my Caesars. Personally, I love a black bean in this salad, because it balances out all the crunchy green elements and adds a meaty flavor to the mix. Of course, you can swap for any bean you love. I recommend garbanzo, pinto, or light red kidney.
gorgonzola: Sorry for this, but gorgonzola is the best! If you don’t like gorgonzola, you probably won’t like my swap suggestions either: blue, feta, or goat. You want crumbly and strong here, or the cheese just won’t shine.
apple cider dressing: Apple cider, garlic, salt, pepper, mustard, and oil. That’s it! The only trick is slightly emulsifying the dressing by pouring the olive oil in slowly while whisking. The mustard is the emulsifier that’ll keep it from separating, making for a creamy-looking pseudo-vinaigrette. Semantics aside, it’s delicious.
butternut squash chopped salad pairing options
Being that the main ingredient is most available in the autumn months, I view this pretty whole-heartily as a fall salad. I love serving it on Thanksgiving besides the dinner’s classics, but you can enjoy this as a main course, as well.
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