This Fall Salad with apples and pecans is perfect for autumn! This salad, made with delicious honey mustard dressing, is a great holiday side dish or just a hearty lunch.
I am so excited for this amazing Fall Salad Recipe! It has the perfect combination of flavors and textures and then is topped with delicious Honey Mustard Dressing. It is the perfect recipe for your apples from apple picking.
Made with some simple ingredients, I know this is going to be a favorite recipe. It is delicious enough to entertain with at a holiday or a party, but it is simple enough that you could take it with for lunch. Plus, I have lots of variations so you get the exact flavors you are looking for.
How to Make a Fall Salad
This salad is as simple as dicing up a pear and some apples and tossing it with salad greens. Be sure to see the substitutions and variations below.
I made my own Honey Mustard Dressing to go with it. I love making homemade salad dressings because you can control the flavors of it so easily.
Honey Mustard Dressing
As mentioned, I made my own salad dressing for this recipe. It comes together simply with ingredients that I always have on hand. Like most dressings it is a balance of oil and an acid. Here we are using lime juice.
- Olive Oil
- Lime Juice
- Honey
- Mustard
- Salt & Pepper
Substitutions and Variations
- Swap out the Blue Cheese: Not everyone is a fan of blue cheese. You can easily take that out and add in feta cheese instead.
- Change the Pecans: If you can’t find walnuts or they don’t apeal to you, use walnuts instead.
- Mix up the Apples: I love Gala Fuji and Jonathan apples in this, but you can use what you have.
- Add in Bacon: Looking for another great flavor to add to this salad? Pop in some bacon!
What to Make with this Fall Salad
When you round this recipe out with a few other ideas, it can be a meal to entertain with! Try serving it with:
If you make this great salad recipe or any of my other recipes, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Apple Pecan Fall Salad
Ingredients
For Salad
- 6 cups mixed greens
- 1 apple I love Jonathan, Fuji, or Gala for this salad, diced
- 1 pear diced
- 1/3 cup craisins
- 1/2 cup blue cheese read about substitutions here
- 1/2 cup salted pecans
Honey Mustard Dressing
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- In a mason jar, combine all the ingredients for the dressing and then shake to combine.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the salad ingredients. Toss to combine. Serve with the dressing on the side.
Notes
Ashley @ Wishes & Dishes says
Just printed the recipe for this salad! Can’t wait to try it! Beautiful photos.
Melissa Griffiths says
Summer ain’t got nothin’ on fall salads. MY FAVORITES all in one place!
Right?? So delicious!
Dottie says
Just took this to a Christmas party last night of 14 women and everyone loved it! Never thought they would eat the whole thing! Will probably make for the family Christmas dinner.
This makes me so happy!
Sharon says
Hi,
I wanted to now how much salt to use….you have 1/ tsp listed, is it 1/4? 1/8? 1/2? 1 whole tsp seems like a lot for this dressing.
Thanks in advance!
So sorry about that Sharon! It is one whole teaspoon. If that seems like too much for you, start with a half and go from there. But I do love the full teaspoon in this.
Laura says
What is the serving size for this recipe? Is it one full cup for a person or more?
DIANA PATEL says
Can I use normal processed cheese instead of blue cheese. Also can I use walnuts instead of pecans. For the competition should I pour dressing on the salad or keep it at the side in a bowl.
Hi Diana! I love salads because swap outs and changes are so easy. Yes, use a different cheese if you don’t like bleu cheese. I think shaved parmesan or feta would be great in this. And that nut swap is super simple and easy. I’m not sure what you mean by competition, but if you are serving it, I usually leave dressing on the side and just let people know. Or you can add just enough to coat the ingredients, toss it, and leave the rest on the side.
Lynn says
Do the apples get brown? And if so do you put anything in them like lemon juice? Thanks in advance.
You can lightly dress it before setting it out and that should help keep the apples from browning.
Rainah says
Made half batch for Thanksgiving for a small crowd when there were recalls on romaine, and hardly any lettuce looked good, so we used baby spinach. Well received, though no one fawned over it. Had some leftovers, so added Turkey for a simple supper later that evening for just myself. Loved that!!! That did not use all the leftovers, so I realized the next day that this salad keeps better than most after being tossed in the dressing. Had more spinach, made more salad. Still love it! Thank you!
Glad to hear you guys liked it! And Romaine recalls make me so sad! I’m glad you still made this.
Lori says
Made this for lunch. Delish! I only made half the recipe and it turned out well. Love the pecans in this. I did sub in Feta for the blue cheese. Not a fan.
So glad you liked it!
Shari says
This looks so good and I really want to try it, but my husband is allergic to honey. If I swapped the honey in the dressing for all natural maple syrup, would that completely ruin the taste? Do you have any other replacement suggestions?
I think that would be delicious, Shari! A great swap!