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Endive Salad with Avocado Buttermilk Dressing

We eat a salad every night with dinner. I run through the greens gamut with spinach, romaine, arugula, and red leaf lettuce. I happen to love radicchio, but my kids don’t care for it unless it’s added as a pop of color and flavor to something else. It’s easy to tire of lettuces so I like to mix it up. My boys loved endive. It’s a crunchy, fresh vegetable that can carry so many flavors nicely on its delicate leaves.

Sometimes I drizzle chopped endive with lemon juice and olive and sprinkle on some sea salt and call it a day. Other times I add  slivers of sweet onion and toss it with an orange vinaigrette. I am a simple vinaigrette girl, but my boys clamor for something creamy once in a while. I don’t want the fat that comes in most creamy dressings so I don’t serve it that often. But when I do, it’s tasty and healthy. Did I mention I don’t believe in bottled salad dressing? Seriously, it’s so easy to make in a snap that you really don’t need to spend the money on it. Plus, the stuff I make from scratch has no weird chemicals or ingredients I can’t pronounce. Last night I served endive with an avocado buttermilk dressing. My whole family gobbled up every last leaf and asked for more (sadly, there was no more). Note to self, buy extra endive next time.

Endive Salad with Avocado Buttermilk Dressing

Wash and chop endive and put into a serving bowl. Put the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and pulse. I used my Ninja Kitchen, which is fantastic for making homemade dressing! Add a tish more olive oil and buttermilk if you want a runny consistency. I like this dressing on the creamy side. Add a couple tablespoons of the dressing to the chopped endive and toss. Serve immediately.

This dressing is also wonderful tossed with thinly sliced fresh fennel (also a crowd favorite here!) or a great replacement for mayonnaise on a cucumber sandwich.

If you haven’t tried endive before, give it a shot! Let me know what you think.

Photo © Ilina Ewen

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About the author: IlinaP (8 Posts)

Ilina Ewen is a seasoned marketer with 20 years of experience in branding, communications, adverstising, and consumer research. She consults with businesses big and small. Ilina is also known as Mommy to two sons, affectionately called Bird and Deal. She blogs about her musings and rants at Dirt & Noise (home of the weekly feature 5:00 Fridays, where you see a new cocktail recipe and the story that inspired it). She is passionate about food: shopping for it, growing it, cooking it, and of course, eating it. Ilina also blogs at Technorati and Triangle Mamas. When she has a moment to breathe, you'll find Ilina building LEGO masterpieces, spoiling her dog, reading everything from cookbooks to teen fiction, or trying to hit a tennis ball over the net. She just scrounged up the courage to start writing her first book.