How to Make a Hearty Green Salad with Seared Halloumi

A protein-and-vegetable-packed bed of greens is the kind of vibrant, low-effort meal that anyone can appreciate.

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– On those days when it’s scorching outside, I don’t want to eat a big meal, much less, spend a lot of time in a hot kitchen cooking that meal. I like a big salad, hat tip to Elaine Benes, and Dan is here and he’s gonna show me a great salad

That’s packed full of flavor and vegetables and lots of satisfying protein too. – Yeah, so what we’re really gonna do is a salad that actually eats like a meal. So like it’s chef salad, but like we’re in a whole nother world. – Fabulous. – Yeah. So it’s gonna be really nice.

And it’s all starts with a quick pickle. So I’ve got a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar here, and I’m gonna add two teaspoons of honey, a little bit of nice sweetness, and three quarters of a teaspoon of salt. I’m just gonna whisk this together. So I have two cups of cauliflower florets

That I have cut into one inch pieces. – Okay. – So we’re gonna pop those in here, and then we’re gonna head to the microwave and cook them for about one to one and a half minutes, just get things nice and steamy. Beautiful. So we’ve got that nice and steamy.

Gonna give it a quick stir, but we’re actually gonna do a lot of our softening at this point. So we’re gonna cover, let it sit for about five minutes while we get into the rest of our prep. Great. So now I’m gonna get into prepping the other components of the salad.

And one thing that we found was really important for a complex interesting salad was to have two different kinds of greens in the mix. So we’re gonna start with green leaf lettuce. This is a small head, but I’m only gonna use half of it. So I’m gonna start by just cutting in half.

And I’m taking off just the bottom of the core there. I’m actually gonna tear this into pieces. Okay, so the next green is not even green, but it is one of my favorite salad vegetables and it’s radicchio. I love the bitterness. You don’t wanna use too too much,

Or it kind of overtakes the salad, but a little bit goes a long way and gives much more complexity to the salad. – All right. – So we’re starting with a small head. Again, I’m only gonna use half of this. I don’t wanna overwhelm it. So I’m just gonna cut down the center

And we’ve got this little cord that we want to get rid of that’s really easy to just go in with your knife on both sides and pop that out. I like to cut it in half. I like to take each side into slightly smaller pieces, and then we’re gonna slice nice and thin.

Now we have our nice sliced radicchio. Next up we have grapes. This is six ounces of red seedless grapes. You’re gonna have a really intense dressing, and we’re gonna have bitter radicchio and all these components. And these just add acidity and sweetness. So we’re just gonna cut these in half. Protein.

We’re gonna have protein in a couple of different forms here, and one is one of my absolute favorite ingredients, not just for salad, but everything in general is Halloumi. So this is four ounces of Halloumi which is a very special cheese. As you know, it doesn’t melt.

– [Bridget] It does not. – Which is very weird for a cheese. I’m gonna cut this into four equal pieces. Now, what makes Halloumi so special is that you can throw it in a skillet, you can throw it in the grill, and it actually browns up beautifully and it doesn’t melt.

Now the reason that’s possible is when they press it and actually get the curds out, they then cook them in the way. It’s a pretty unusual step for cheese. Before we get searing, I want to drain my cauliflower pickle over there. So it’s done a nice job infusing, but it’s still crisp tender,

Which is what we’re looking for. That crunch is gonna be so nice. So what we’re gonna do is actually use a slotted spoon and leave all of that pickling liquid behind. So we’ve got the cauliflower out, so we’re gonna use this to build our dressing in a little bit. – All right.

– So now it’s time to cook our Halloumi. So I have a small little eight inch non-stick skillet here. Extra virgin olive oil, which I’m gonna heat over medium high heat until shimmering. And we’re gonna pop in our four slices of Halloumi, get that nice little sizzle. – A little bit of sizzle.

– So we’re gonna cook this for about 60 to 90 seconds per side. Just wait until I flip these. The browning is so beautiful and the flavor gets really intense. – [Bridget] Great. – So that’s been 60 seconds. We’ll take a look. – [Bridget] Oh, gorgeous color – [Dan] Isn’t it gorgeous?

Oh yeah. – [Bridget] That color means flavor. – All right, another 60 seconds and we’ve got lovely browning on the sides. – Beautiful, beautiful. – So this is done. Take it off the heat and pop a lid on. This is gonna help us keep it nice and warm.

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So are you ready to become the best cook you know? Subscribe to “Cook’s Illustrated” magazine at cooksillustrated.com today. All right, we’ve done all of our salad prep, and so now it’s a matter of mixing, seasoning and then plating really thoughtfully. And that’s another aspect that we wanna focus on.

So you get different bites all the time, and a really complex salad. So I’m gonna start by taking two tablespoons of our pickling liquid and adding it to two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil that I have in this large bowl. – [Bridget] Ah, I see the basis of a vinegarette happening.

– Just gonna whisk this up. It’s not gonna really emulsify ’cause it’s just a couple ingredients. The honey will help a little bit with that. Okay, great. Now we’re gonna go in with our greens. So we’ve got our torn up green leaf lettuce, and then our thinly sliced radicchio.

– [Bridget] Beautiful. – [Dan] It’s so beautiful. I’m just gonna give it a little toss to combine. And then once it has a nice little coating of dressing on it, I like to hit it with salt and pepper. Gives it something for the salt and pepper to stick to right.

And make sure that every leaf is well seasoned. So a little bit of kosher salt and a little fresh black pepper. So as you can see, we’re dressing the greens pretty lightly. We’re gonna make another dressing that has a lot more oomph to it,

But we want every bite to have a nice base level. – [Bridget] Okay. – Okay, we have our two salad bowls here. So the first element is gonna be this lovely greens mixture. – [Bridget] Lovely. – Now, some people would call this a salad, but we’re gonna go a lot further.

I’m gonna set these aside for a moment and we’re gonna build a really awesome dressing. So we’ve got our pickling liquid, which has a little bit of honey and salt, and the flavor from the cauliflower. We’re gonna add three tablespoons of Greek yogurt. This is gonna add a ton of creaminess

And body, then two tablespoons of tahini. Next I have one garlic clove, minced. And then I have a half teaspoon of Aleppo pepper. – Gorgeous. – So Aleppo pepper is incredibly fruity. It’s moderately spicy, so you can use a lot of it. And it’s kind of rough and coarse in the way

That it’s cut. So it’s just a really beautiful chili pepper. And then finally a quarter teaspoon of salt. And I’m just gonna whisk this together. So we’ll take a quarter cup of this dressing and just the chickpeas with it. So I have two thirds of a cup of canned chickpeas.

They’re really creamy, really nice, super easy, and they’re just been drained and rinse. – [Bridget] Okay. – And just stir that in. Chickpeas are in good shape. They’re gonna come back in just a second. So we’ve got our two beautiful salad bases here, and we’re just gonna build little piles

Of these wonderful ingredients over the top. So I’m gonna start with a little bit of pickled cauliflower. Okay, so now I’m adding the grapes. I’m gonna put those in nice pile next to the cauliflower. And now it’s time for our Halloumi. We’re just gonna go two nice pieces.

– [Bridget] Oh, lovely. – All right, now we’re gonna do a nice little drizzle of the remaining dressing over these three piles. Just make sure everything gets that nice treatment. Gorgeous chickpeas. So this really is one of those salads where you follow the recipe exactly the first time.

And then you kind of fall in love with little different parts of it, like the vinegarette you love, and you’re use that on different things, pickled cauliflower, and then the Halloumi is like you need a quick protein. On any weeknight, it’s really, really great too.

– [Bridget] There’s no way this cannot taste good. I mean, it looks amazing. I got a little bit of the greens, beautifully dressed. I’m gonna go in for some cauliflower now. – [Dan] I’ll join you. – Mm. It’s just softened a little bit, but still has that really briny crunch.

Let’s tuck into some Halloumi here. I love Halloumi, I mean, the texture on its own. It’s almost meaty. It’s really substantial, but it’s a gorgeous, light, salty cheese. Definitely seasoned well. I love that browning. That really deepens the flavor. – It’s like adding chicken to a salad is fine,

But it doesn’t add a ton of flavor. It just brings its own flavor. But we do have other variations that are just as complex and interesting on our website. – Fantastic. Every bite of this gets better. Thanks, Dan. – You’re welcome. – Appreciate it. Now, if you wanna make this amazing salad,

Make a quick pickled cauliflower, brown Halloumi cheese for lots of flavor, and then dress the salad with a vinegarette and creamy yogurt dressing. It’s the salad that never ends, and you’re thankful for that. So from “America’s Test Kitchen”, hearty green salad with chickpeas, pickled cauliflower, and seared Halloumi.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with product reviews and select episodes. And those are all on our website, Americastestkitchen.com/tv. Only problem is the bowl’s too small. – We hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it.

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