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If you’re looking for a delicious and different fall salad, give my Shaved Celery Salad with Fig and Parmesan a try! It’s a great way to use extra celery. Fresh, flavorful, and super easy to make!
Shaved Celery Salad With Fig and Parmesan – A Surprising Fall Salad
I like to think of myself as fairly imaginative when it comes to cooking. But when it comes to celery, my imagination kind of failed me.
Yes, celery is something that finds its way into my shopping cart at least a couple of times a month. However, my uses for celery were pretty routine.
Mostly, I’d add it to soup. Or maybe toss it into a salad if I was trying to use it up. Sometimes, I’d chop it into tuna or chicken salad to give it some crunch, or maybe spread some peanut butter onto celery sticks for a snack. But celery has never been the star of the show, at least not in my kitchen.
Not until now.
Inspiration from The Walla Walla Wine Country
A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I took a brief trip to the wine country of Walla Walla, Washington. Good vineyards tend to attract good chefs too, and that’s certainly the case in Walla Walla.
The wonderful seasonal menu at Hattaway’s on Alder included a shaved celery salad with fig and parmesan. Honestly, I ordered it mostly out of curiosity. Because who ever heard of a salad where celery was the star of the show?
Well, the long of the short of it is that I absolutely loved Hattaway’s shaved celery salad! The slightly firm texture and subtle flavor of shaved celery combined with sweet fresh figs and the salty richness of parmesan cheese is a winner.
As soon as I got home, I set out to make my own version of this elegant and surprisingly delicious fall salad. My version tastes a little different than the one I had a Hattaway’s, but I really loved it, and so did my family. I bet yours will, too!
How to Make Shaved Celery Salad with Fig With Parmesan
This is a super easy salad to make, but I do have a couple of tips.
If you can make the dressing a few hours before serving, or even the night before, that would be best. A little extra time in the refrigerator will give the herbs and spices an opportunity to meld.
Chances are good that you’ve never shaved celery before, but it is easy. Simply use a vegetable peeler to shave the tougher outer skin from each piece of celery.
Once that’s done, you’ll slice the stalks crossways as thinly as possible. You can use a knife for that purpose, but if you have a V-slicer or mandolin, that would be best.
Plating the salad is very straightforward and described in the recipe instructions. The final step is to top each salad with a fluffy cloud of grated parmesan cheese. While you could use the smallest holes on a box grater, my preference is to use a microplane grater, to get really delicate shreds of cheese.
Microplanes aren’t expensive and so useful. In addition to grating hard cheeses, like parmesan, I use them to zest citrus and grate chocolate. Here’s one I like.
Oh, and something else I like? This shaved celery salad recipe! It’s a terrific souvenir from my trip to Walla Walla, and a fall salad I’ll be making a lot this season.
Give it a try soon!
Print
Fall Salad Shaved Celery Salad with Fig and Parmesan
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
For the Yogurt:
- 1/3 cup plain yogurt
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 1 T fresh lemon juice
- ½ tsp dried basil
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp fresh ground pepper
For the Salad:
- 4–5 stalks celery
- 4 fresh figs
- 4 large romaine lettuce leaves
- ¼ cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
- 2 oz parmesan
Instructions
- Make the dressing – mix yogurt, mayo, lemon juice, basil, salt and pepper together in small bowl, set aside. (If possible, make the dressing a few hours ahead of time to give the flavors a chance to meld.)
- Use a vegetable peeler to shave the toughest outer skin from the celery. Then thinly slice the shaved celery on mandolin or V-slicer. (Can use a knife if needed but slice as thin as possible.) Trim stem from the figs and sliced into quarters.
- Place a romaine leaf on each of four plates. Drizzle a little bit of the dressing on each leaf, then divide shaved celery among the four plates, mounding on the romaine leaves. Place 4 fig quarters around the rim of each plate.
- Drizzle remaining dressing equally over each mound of celery. Grate ½ oz parmesan onto of celery. (Grate with a microplane grater if possible). Sprinkle pecans around edge and serve.
