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Red Wine Poached Pear Gorgonzola Salad is a beautiful green salad with sweet pears poached in red wine combined with salty gorgonzola cheese and crunchy chopped walnuts.
Fresh pear season is now underway. I learned that 10 varieties of USA Pears are currently being harvested.
- Green Anjou
- Red Anjou
- Yellow Bartlett
- Red Bartlett
- Boscdre
- Comice
- Concorde
- Forelle
- Seckel
- Starkrimson
It’s easy to find out if a pear is ripe: apply gentle pressure to the narrow “neck” of the pear with your thumb. If it yields to pressure, it’s ripe. See. Easy! While most people prefer their pears to be perfectly ripe, uses for crisp and under-ripe pears abound. They are especially ideal for poaching.
Poaching a pear is easy, but looks and tastes so elegant. Traditionally pears are poached in a wine and sugar mixture, but today’s poached pear recipes run the spectrum of flavors and uses, using tea, bourbon, coconut milk, beer, coffee, or a myriad of other poaching liquids.
For the salad, I used Bosc pears poached in red wine for about 25 minutes. They are sweet and delicious and make a gorgeous presentation because they take on the deep rich color of the red wine.
When the sweet, red wine poached pears are combined with the salty gorgonzola cheese and the crunchy walnuts, it creates a beautifully, delicious complete salad that everyone will love.
Next time you are at the grocery store, be sure to pick some some USA pears so you can impress your family and friends with this Red Wine Poached Pear Gorgonzola Salad.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 Concorde or Bosc pears peeled, halved, and cored
- 2 cups red wine
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 6 cups mixed greens washed and drained
- 3/4 cup gorgonzola
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Instructions
- In a medium pan over medium heat, add pears, red wine, orange juice, sugar, and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer cook for about 25 minutes or until the pears are soft. Remove pear slices and drain.
- Meanwhile, divide washed salad greens onto 6 plates. Divide pear slices evenly between the plates. Sprinkle with gorgonzola cheese and chopped walnuts. Enjoy!
Rachael says
I just love salad, especially gorgonzola salad! This looks so sophisticated and yummy.
Sarah says
Very pretty salad. I’ve been craving salads lately and I’ve got to this soon!
Sandra Shaffer says
This salad really looks delicious! The ingredients you used to poach the pears in sounds so tasty! Looking forward to try this salad!
Jennifer says
Is there a dressing that goes on it?
Michele says
Hi Jennifer, great question. One thing you can do is reserve about 2 tablespoons of the liquid and add a couple of tablespoons each of oil and vinegar and stir together and then drizzle over the salad. Another option would be to make the dressing from the recipe below. Thanks for asking. I may have to update this recipe to add a dressing.
https://flavormosaic.com/mediterranean-chicken-chickpea-bacon-spinach-salad/
Sue says
What kind of vinegar? Oil?
Michele says
Hi Sue,
There is none in this recipe.
Thanks,
Michele