I love salads. I really do! They are so versatile, and you can basically throw anything on top of lettuce and voila- a salad. THIS salad, however, is my absolute favorite. You know how when at a restaurant, you scour the menu for a few specific ingredients you like? Well that is me when it comes to ordering a salad. Give me a salad with goat cheese, nuts, and dried fruit and I am in heaven.

I first tried this salad at the wonderful Parkshore Grill on Beach Drive in St. Petersburg and since then, have been in love with the combination of pecans, dried cranberries, and goat cheese. Of course I had to re-create it and put my own healthy spin on it, as the one from the restaurant has a much heavier dressing and “candied” pecans.

So, to have this gorgeous salad more often, I developed an amazing, creamy vinaigrette, and topped the spring greens with raw pecans rather than sugar-coated ones. As you’ve probably heard, salads can get a bad wrap as people tend to order them trying to be healthy, when in reality, the salad may have more fat and sugar in it than another menu item. Take the Caesar salad for instance- which I love- but a restaurant size can pack up to over 1200 calories!

So when making or ordering a salad, two things are important- portion size and the dressing. I feel the dressing is often the most deceiving…be sure to check labels when at the grocery…

To prove my point…can you guess what item has the following ingredients?

Water, corn syrup, cultured lowfat buttermilk, vinegar, garlic juice, cellulose gel, sugar, salt, skim milk, sour cream, onion, xantham gum, monosodium glutamate with potassium sorbate and calcium disodium EDTA as preservative, lactic-acid, natural flavor, propylene glyrcol alginate,  artificial color phosphoric acid….

And the list goes on. So what do ya think? In case you’re not sure…Ranch NONFAT dressing. I don’t know about you, but personally, I prefer only eating things which I actually know what they are.

So, make this salad, make this dressing…its simple, HEALTHY, and oh so yum!