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Liven up your lunch with this delicious lamb salad with flaked almonds, apricots and goats cheese. Perfect for a healthy lunch or summer barbecue.
So I have some exciting news for you all. I am now working with Lamb. Tasty Easy Fun as a Lambassador.
It’s a job I think I’m perfectly suited to as it basically involves cooking lots of yummy food with lamb (which I love), telling you all about it and trying to encourage you to do the same.
Sadly, judging by the size of the lamb shelf in my local supermarket, it’s not as loved as some other meats (I’d say that the beef and chicken sections are at least 4x the size) and that’s a huge shame as it’s so full of flavour and really versatile. I’m hoping that over the next few months I’ll be able to show you some ideas for using it in different ways and hopefully convince you all to incorporate it more into your food.
Today’s recipe is perfect for January when I know a fair few of you are trying to be a bit healthier. I’ve designed it to show off how lamb can be included into a salad. I don’t know about you, but I find some salads a little bit boring, especially if they include a lot of leaves and not much else. This one has a base of salad leaves but I’ve tried to incorporate all the other things that I love to add to make salads more interesting… fruit for sweetness, nuts for a bit of crunch and cheese for a bit of creamy saltiness, all finished off with a little dressing made from a simple mix of lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil.
This salad is quite quick to prepare and can be packed up in a lunch box to take to work or on a picnic with you. If you’re going to do this then I’d suggest taking the dressing in a separate little pot to pour over so the leaves don’t go soggy before lunchtime, and also to ensure that your lamb has cooled completely before adding it to the salad so it doesn’t wilt the leaves (if you’re making it fresh at home just before eating it then the lamb tastes lovely left a little bit warm).
As well as making for a delicious lunch, this recipe is also perfect for a summer barbecue. Simply make up the salad in a big bowl, cook the lamb steaks on the barbecue, slice them up and then serve.
For more tasty lamb recipe inspiration take a look at the Lamb. Tasty Easy Fun website or my fellow Lambassador, Eb at Easy Peasy Foodie, has a fantastic selection too.
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Lamb Salad with Goats Cheese, Apricots and Almonds
INGREDIENTS
- 4 generous handfuls of babyleaf salad - about 80g
- 1 stick celery
- 1 apricot
- 60 g soft goats cheese - about 4 tbsp
- 1 tbsp toasted flaked almonds
- 1 lamb steak - or about 150g of cooked lamb if you have any leftover from your Sunday roast - skip step 1 if you do
- About 10 fresh mint leaves
For the dressing
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tsp olive oil - preferably extra virgin
INSTRUCTIONS
- Chop the lamb steak into thin strips. Put a small frying pan over a medium heat and once hot add the lamb strips. Cook the lamb until it's browned all over (turning to ensure it's even) and then remove it from the pan. Set it aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the salad.
- Chop the celery, goats cheese and apricot into small chucks (about 1cm) and finely chop the mint leaves.
- Place all of the salad ingredients into a bowl (chopped celery, goats cheese, apricot, mint, toasted flaked almonds, cooked lamb) and toss them together.
- Mix the dressing ingredients (juice of half a lemon, 1 tsp white wine vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil) together, pour them over the salad and serve.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
A few substitutions
This is one of those salads where you can easily make substitutions to use up what you already have at home. I’ve added the ingredients here that I think go together best but you could…
- Switch the celery for some shredded cabbage
- Switch the goats cheese for feta
- Switch the tasted almonds for other toasted nuts (I’ve tried both hazelnuts and peanuts)
- Switch the babyleaf salad for other salad leaves.
- Switch the fresh apricot for dried or for another fruit such as nectarines or pomegranates.
- If you have lamb leftover from a roast dinner then simply chop it into strips and add it to the salad in place of the lamb steak.
Free From/Suitable For…
- Corn-Free
- Egg-Free
- Gluten-Free
- Soy-Free
The ingredients for this recipe are commonly available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.
ukuze says
Lamb Salad sounds delicious and health.will try it soon thanks for sharing such a healthy salad recipe.
Eb Gargano / easypeasyfoodie.com says
Wow – such a delicious sounding salad – such lovely flavour combinations. I would happily wolf this down 🙂 Such beautiful photography too (Your photos are always lovely but these are especially gorgeous). And thanks so much for the shout out!! Lovely to hear you are also a Lambassador! Can’t wait to see what else you have planned. Eb x
Charlotte Oates says
I was testing the next recipe last night, it’s really yummy so I can’t wait to share it!
[email protected] says
The salad looks amazing, Charlotte! Unfortunately I am not a lamb fan (I’ve tried several times) 🙁 . Maybe one day :). By the way, I love the overall look of your photos. Do you use natural light or artificial one? Thanks
Charlotte Oates says
My husband keeps telling he’s not a lamb fan but then each time I serve him up one of my creations as part of this collaboration he’s really enjoyed them (although admittedly I didn’t try the salad on him).
For these photos I used artificial light as there is no sunshine at the moment to take pictures in natural light. I’ve got two lamps so it was lit from the side and the back. I’d been worrying about the pictures as salad can be tricky to photograph in artificial light but I was pleased with how they turned out.
Kirsty Hijacked By Twins says
Oh Charlotte this looks and sounds amazing! I love the combination of lamb with the goats cheese and apricots. Congratulations on becoming a Lambasador I look forward to seeing more delicious lamb recipes. Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x