Recipe: Outback Steakhouse Chopped Salad

We just tried this salad (Outback Steakhouse Chopped Salad) the other day & asked the waiter about it. He told us chopped romaine, chopped iceberg, shredded carrots, slivered shallots, candied almonds, blue cheese vinaigrette & blue cheese along with...deep fried vermicelli? I thought it was the tiny kind of chow mein noodles you can sometimes find...very thin. I imagine the cinnamon/ginger taste you got was due to the candied almonds.

This week I used Ann Hogdman's recipe for a base and tweaked it thus:

4 Tablespoons olive oil (she uses corn)
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (one I used was very aged, so dressing was kinda sweet, but not too)
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 small cove garlic, minced
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
3 oz blue cheese, or to taste

Whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard,garlic and pepper until emulsified. Do not add salt.

Crumble blue cheese itno small pieces.

First toss salad greens with vinaigrette and then--carefully--with the clue cheese. She states that the best way to make a good bleu cheese dressing is not to combine the cheese vinaigrette ahead of time.

I chopped romaine & iceberg lettuce, shredded some carrot & slivered some shallots. I didn't have candied almonds & couldn't find any tiny chow mein noodles (and didn't want to go to the trouble of deep frying vermicelli!) I plan to keep looking for the tiny noodles. I crumbled the bleu cheese over the salad & tossed it with the dressing. It was very good, the aged balsamic helped make up for the sweetness lost due to no candied almonds. My husband said it even improved with time in his lunch box, something I would not think would happen with a chopped salad.

My waiter told me there was also thinly shredded cabbage in the mixed greens. He also thought the nut was a candied pecan.

Isauteed Chow Mein Stir Fry Noodles by WellPac (also called Chuka Soba noodles) in some olive oil until lightly browned, drained on paper towels and cooled.

I also used the Vinaigrette (thank you!) but used white balsamic vinegar with just a splash of the regular balsamic for sweetness because it doesn't discolor the lettuce.

Made my own cinnamon pecans, used about a cup. Lightly crumbled the noodles into the salad.

This salad should be tossed about 1/2 hour before serving with the vinaigrette so the chow mein noodles soften up and to allow the flavors to meld. Didn't have any red shredded cabbage but didn't miss it.