Warm Broccoli & Bacon Salad

Ingredients

1 - 2 heads of Broccoli cut into florets
150 grams steaky bacon sliced into 2 cm pieces
50-100 grams Blue Cheese
¼ cup Dried Cranberries
½ cup Walnuts
1 tablespoon Honey
3-4 Tablespoons *Honey Mustard Dressing see recipe below
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Toss your walnuts in the honey and season well with salt & pepper
Place walnuts on a lined baking tray and roast until golden, stirring once while roasting, around 12 minutes.
While the nuts are roasting, cook your bacon.
Heat a pan over a medium heat and cook bacon until you are happy with the degree of cooking. I like mine not quite crispy, around 5 minutes cook time. Set aside.
Boil your broccoli in a pot of salted boiling water. You want to watch your broccoli closely as it is the star of this dish and there is nothing worse than flabby broccoli. Cook for around 3 minutes, until just done.
Take out of the pan, drain well, and place into a bowl, add the 2 tablespoons of honey mustard dressing and toss to coat.
Place on your serving dish.
Top with dried cranberries.
For the blue cheese, I like to use a knife and wedge off little blue cheese nuggets onto the salad.
Add the honey roasted walnuts, and bacon, and drizzle with a little more dressing.
Serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

Instead of blue cheese, you can use feta or a chevre
You can sub the Honey Mustard dressing for any of your favourite vinaigrettes
This salad is lovely on its own, or serve it as a side dish when entertaining. It’s also lovely with some crusty bread and butter or a bowl of minty potatoes
Make it vegetarian by omitting the bacon.
You could swap the bacon for smoked chicken.
Broccoli can range in size, 1 large head, or 2 small heads, works for this recipe.
If you aren’t using runny honey, heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds so it is easier to spread over the walnuts. And it will also heat up when in the oven roasting the nuts.