Roasted Pear Salad with Goat Cheese

• Roasted Pears: Gather your ingredients for the roasted pears. You will need firm pears, extra virgin olive oil, maple syrup, kosher salt (or sea salt), and ground black pepper.
• Lemon Vinaigrette: To prepare the dressing, you will need olive oil, lemon juice, a few cloves of minced garlic, dijon mustard, kosher salt, and ground black pepper.
• The Salad: For the salad, you will need a combination of arugula and spring mix, toasted pecans, crumbled goat cheese, and pomegranate arils.

Substitutions & Helpful Notes on Ingredients:

• What pears should you use?: I find that the best pears for this arugula pear salad (and for roasting) are Red or Green Anjou Pear, Concord Pear, Bosc Pear, or Bartlett Pears. However, you can use other types of pears as well. You can also mix and match and use two varieties to take advantage of their flavor profiles.
  When shopping at the grocery store be sure to buy firm pears instead of ripe pears. Ripened pears will be too juicy and will get too mushy after they are roasted.
• Cheese: I use soft goat cheese to garnish the salad, but you can also other soft cheeses like feta cheese, gorgonzola cheese, or blue cheese as well.
• Salad Greens: I use a combination of mixed greens, like red leaf lettuce, frisee, radicchio, and arugula, but any of your favorite greens, like baby spinach, would also work.
• Nuts: For this Roasted Pear Salad, I use toasted pecans, but you can also use hazelnuts, walnuts, or even pine nuts as an alternative. Whichever nut you chose to use, I highly recommend spending a few minutes toasting them to bring out their flavors.
• Sweetener: I used maple syrup to drizzle the pears, but agave or honey roasted pear salad would also be delicious.