Blueberry Salad Recipe: 6 Variations on Blueberry Salad

A blueberry salad is a summer salad featuring fresh blueberries and other salad ingredients—for example, greens, cheese, and nuts—plus a salad dressing or vinaigrette. A blueberry salad can be a side dish or main course, depending on the other ingredients you include. This type of salad is a fruit salad, but it differs from dessert fruit salads, which usually also incorporate pudding, cream, or yogurt.

A blueberry salad usually contains greens, blueberries, and other mix-ins. Here are six ways to customize or update your salad’s flavors:

1. 1. Add protein. Topping a blueberry salad with grilled chicken, steak, crispy bacon, or tofu turns the salad from a side dish into a main course. Season the protein or marinade it in flavors that complement your salad dressing and other toppings.
2. 2. Change up the salad greens. Use baby spinach, arugula, romaine, red leaf lettuce, or a combination of all of the greens. For a green salad mix, chop all the greens into pieces that are roughly the same size and toss them together.
3. 3. Make a new dressing. Combine sour cream, buttermilk, fresh herbs, and lemon juice to make a creamy ranch dressing. Or make a balsamic vinaigrette using balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, and black pepper.
4. 4. Toast nuts. The buttery flavor of warmed or candied nuts, such as toasted pecans or toasted walnuts, complements the crunch of fresh lettuce and fruit flavor of blueberries.
5. 5. Top the salad with cheese. Add saltiness and a creamy texture by adding a crumbled cheese or shaving Parmesan over your salad. Feta cheese is briny and salty, blue cheese is earthy, and goat cheese is tangy and slightly sweet. Alternatively, use vegan cheese for a dairy-free blueberry salad.
6. 6. Use stale bread to make croutons. For extra crunch and even more flavor, add store-bought croutons or make homemade croutons from leftover, stale bread or gluten-free bread. For croutons that come together in under twenty minutes, try making Chef Apollonia Poilâne’s oven-baked brioche croutons recipe, which uses stale brioche bread, salt, pepper, and olive oil.