Colorful and juicy, blueberries add nutrition and flavor to any salad.
Add a pop of sweet-tart flavor and bright coloring to your salads. Blueberries are a healthy addition to any salad. Take advantage of fresh blueberries during the summer while they are in season and readily available in grocery stores. During the rest of the year, use recipes requiring frozen or blueberries, instead.
Chicken Salad Raisin Replacement
For a new twist on chicken salad, opt for dried blueberries instead of raisins. Mariani, a seller of dried wild blueberries, offers a recipe for chicken salad. This salad combines cooked chunks of chicken with a mayonnaise dressing and dried blueberries, chutney and almonds. The chutney and blueberries stand in for other fruits used in some chicken salad recipes such as apples, raisins or grapes. Look for dried blueberries with the other dried fruit in supermarkets.
Summer Sensation Salad
Take advantage of the patriotic holidays during blueberry season: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Prepare a fruity red, white and blue salad with blueberries, strawberries and apples. For the white fruit, substitute pale honeydew melon or banana slices. Watermelon or raspberries can replace the red strawberries. A recipe from Family Fun magazine dresses the red, white and blue salad with a honey-lime dressing accented with mint.
Cheese and Blueberries
Combine blue, goat or feta cheese with blueberries, nuts and salad greens. Toss the salad with a dressing of your choice. The sweet blueberries contrast the savory, saltiness of the cheese. Albert Paris, executive chef from Zanzibar Blue in Philadelphia, has a recipe for combining blueberries with Gorgonzola cheese over salad greens topped with a creamy poppy seed dressing.
Coleslaw
For a bright purple alternative to traditional pale recipes for coleslaw, use shredded red cabbage and blueberries. The sweet salad suggested by BC Blueberries combines a creamy dressing with sugar, fresh or frozen blueberries and shredded red cabbage. The result is a salad that blurs the lines between side dish and dessert. Try serving this sweet treat as an alternative to sweet carrot-raisin salad.
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