Recipe + Review: Copycat Apple Goat Cheese Salad at Spoon & Cellar

So what does that mean? You get a combo recipe & restaurant review! Plus a lot of my readers are not here in the Queen City – so you can have some of the delicious food I have – no matter where you are!

First let me tell you a little about Spoon & Cellar – they’re a very large and pretty new restaurant at 7th & Broadway in downtown Cincinnati. They serve brunch every day (Mango Coconut Pancakes?!) as well as lunch and dinner. As you can guess by the name – they have a great wine & drink menu as well.

I grabbed the team and went for lunch and it was a chilly day – so I started with the ham & bean soup ($5). I’m used to ham & bean soup being thicker but this was really good. There were loads of chunks of ham, beans and lots of vegetables. Everybody was pretty jealous of my soup!

Since I got soup – I decided to get a salad to go with it and there was one that jumped out at me – Apple Goat Cheese Salad ($10). You can also add chicken, salmon, steak or shrimp – but since I had the soup I just went without any.

This salad really has all my favorites – candied pecans, dried cranberries, green apple and then my favorite – goat cheese!!! They topped it with a chardonnay vinaigrette…it was very light and tangy.

One of my coworkers got this Pulled Pork sandwich ($10) and I have to say – it looked amazing!!! It’s normally topped with a chipotle slaw but Keith isn’t a fan. He really liked it. Poor guy – having lunch with 3 women – we all stole his fries! They were great – super crispy!

After this great lunch – the next day I was still hungry for that salad so I came home and went to town!!! it’s a super easy salad to put together and you can add protein to it or have it as a side with something like my Cream Cheese Spaghetti Bake.

I really liked this salad – and you can make all the ingredients from scratch – or take a couple of shortcuts! I had some of my Slow Cooker Cinnamon Sugar Pecans on hand from the holidays – but you can also buy candied pecans.  I didn’t feel like making a Chardonnay Vinaigrette – so I used a Champagne Vinaigrette I had in the fridge.

The thing is – when you jazz up a salad like this – the whole family wants to eat it that much more! Throwing plain iceberg lettuce in a bowl and tossing some ranch on it is fine – but grab a couple extra ingredients and jazz it up – they’ll be scarfing it down!!!! And you don’t need a lot of any of the extras – just a little bit goes a long way – then when you get that bite with the goat cheese, pecan and cranberry – it’s like you hit the jackpot!

I hope you’ll enjoy this salad as much as I did!!! And will again and again – it’s a staple for me now!

Yield: 2Author: Heather JohnsonPrint Recipe

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Copycat Spoon & Cellar Apple Goat Cheese Salad

I love a great salad and this was so good I had to make it at home!!!

prep time: 5 minscook time: total time: 5 mins

ingredients

• 3-4 cups mixed spring greens 
• Cinnamon Sugar Pecans
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup goat cheese crumbles
• 1 green apple, thinly sliced
• Champagne Vinaigrette (or Chardonnay Vinaigrette)

instructions

1. Separate all ingredients between two bowls and add dressing!