Sensational salad!
I first had a sensation salad with my friend, Janice, at Magnolia Cafe in St. Francisville, LA. My first thought was boy is this a simple salad — lettuce and dressing and some cheese. Simple is good sometimes when you want a salad to go with say, pizza and don’t want to fuss about a lot of ingredients.
From my search, I found almost all recipes were the same. Most recipes tore up the greens but what I remembered about my sensation(al) salad was that the lettuce was kind of shredded like you would for tacos but maybe not as thin. Of course, I just had to mess with the original and I thought that some fresh avocado would be great with the salad and the dressing and of course the pizza that we were doing on our Kamodo Joe smoker. Ok, so I couldn’t quit thinking of what else to add to this salad. With all this shredded iceberg lettuce that is traditional, why not add another shade of green by adding some shredded romaine; and why stop there? I threw in some good blue cheese with the Romano. And, next time I might throw in some tomato and fried bacon bits. Maybe that wouldn’t still be called a Sensation Salad but it would taste SENSATIONAL!
The salad is said to have been created by Jake Staples for a restaurant in Baton Rouge called The Place and it is as popular in Baton Rouge as a caesar salad is in an Italian restaurants.
So, want a simple little salad with big taste, then give this a try and if you do, leave a note below in the “comment” section. It’s still pretty simple, even with my additions.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: Chicken Salad in Avocado Boats is a good salad for the warmer months; would be good lunch or dinner.
Sorry for the blurry picture. I chopped some romaine lettuce up along with the iceberg lettuce.
Dressing ingredients. Whisk up and refrigerate until ready to dress salad.
Peel the avocado, cut into slices and run under cold water and then drain, cover and refrigerate.
Add the cheeses to the greens.
Top with some of the dressing (not all), toss and add more dressing if needed to coat.
Top salad with avocado. Ya know, some crispy bacon would really be good on top of this salad.
Sensation Salad with Avocado
Ingredients
- Dressing:
- 3 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/8 tsp. black pepper
- 4 oz. olive oil
- 5 oz. vegetable oil
- 2 large cloves garlic minced
- Salad:
- 1 c. grated Romano cheese
- 1/2 c. crumbled blue cheese
- 2 avocados sliced and run under water
- 4 sprigs parsley chopped
- 1 head romaine iceberg, or Boston
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients for dressing in a bowl or jar. Add 1/4 cup of cold water. Whisk the mixture or shake in jar until well combined. Refrigerate until serving.
- When ready to serve, add the cheeses and parsley to the dressing and stir until incorporated into dressing.
- Either tear up the greens (I like to shred mine in about 1/4-1/2" pieces. Toss the salad with about 2/3 of the dressing and add more cheese if you want.
Recipe Notes
Note: The dressing can be halved. Try adding in some halved grape tomatoes and maybe a handful of fried bacon bits.
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