Back in March, my extended family had a birthday party for all the March bdays at the park. We love doing this when the weather is nice because the kiddos can all play nearby and no one has to do the work of hosting our large, loud family (and 400 children) at their house. We all bring a side dish to go with the buckets of fried chicken, and this Stetson Salad With Pesto Buttermilk Dressing seriously stole the show. We all sat down to eat, and as we tasted the salad, people started murmuring to one another, “Dear Lord, this salad is so good!” and “Oh my, what kind of salad is this? Who brought this? Is that couscous? It’s amazing!”
Well it turns out the salad was made by Becky (my cousin’s wife’s mother) who is known for bringing fantastic dishes to our get togethers. The salad was so good in such a different and unexpected way, that I had to get up from my chair in the middle of dinner and seek our beloved Becky out to inquire about the salad. You see, when I taste something really outstanding, I immediately think of YOU ALL, and how I must secure some details so that I can share, share, share.
What makes this salad so good is the combination of textures – crisp greens and veggies, crunchy nuts, creamy cheese – all gently tossed with a really subtle creamy herb dressing. I’ve never had any dressing like this one – it’s a mixture of basil pesto, olive oil, salt and pepper, buttermilk, shallot, and lemon and it’ll knock your socks off. You’ll crave it for weeks, I’m telling you!
As I begin to interrogate Becky about the salad, she sweetly points to a gift bag she had tucked out of the way, and says, “Why don’t you just go ahead and open your present there?” (My birthday is one of the March bdays). Inside the gift bag was the hand written recipe for said Stetson Salad along with a special ingredient that she had ordered from Amazon. You know some people just have the gift of gift giving. Becky knows I’m a foodie, and she knew I would love this salad. So she gave me the gift of a really good salad. Isn’t that the sweetest thing? I thought so.
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Stetson Salad With Pesto Buttermilk Dressing
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Salads
- Cuisine: American
Description
This salad is loved by all – a wonderful combination of textures and flavors with a dressing that will knock your socks off!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup dry Israeli (pearl) couscous, cooked according to directions and cooled
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 cup asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces (subbed for Roma tomatoes)
- 2 cups arugula
- 1/2 cup chopped roasted hazelnuts (subbed for pepitas)
- 1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled (subbed for crumbled asiago)
- 1/2 cup super-sweet dried corn (see link in post)
For the Dressing
- 1/2 cup basil pesto
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 1 cup buttermilk
- Juice of one lemon
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- While couscous is cooking, heat up olive oil in a medium pan on medium high heat. Add asparagus pieces, and saute for 2-3 minutes, or until just tender crisp. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine couscous, asparagus, arugula, hazelnuts, and feta. Toss with dressing to coat. You will likely have some dressing leftover.
- Just before serving, add dried corn.
For the Dressing
- Add the ingredients except olive oil to a blender. Run the blender, slowly drizzling the olive oil as it blends into the dressing so it will emulsify. Add salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 teaspoon of each).
Notes
*I substituted a few of the ingredients with ones I had on hand, but noted the actual ingredients from the original recipe in parenthesis.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Serving
- Calories: 393
- Sugar: 5.2g
- Sodium: 403mg
- Fat: 34g
- Saturated Fat: 6.3g
- Unsaturated Fat: 25.7g
- Trans Fat: 0.1g
- Carbohydrates: 16g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 9.8g
- Cholesterol: 18mg
Disclaimer: the links in this post for the corn are Amazon affiliate links.
Tamara says
This Stetson salad looks amazing! I unfortunately can not have the lemon (too acidic), same with vinegars, other citrus fruits and tomatoes 🙁 so I was wondering if you think omitting the lemon would change the salad so much that it would lose the yumminess, and why even bother…
Thanks 🙂
Tamara
Julie says
Tamara, thanks for your question. I haven’t tried the dressing without the lemon juice, but I think you might still enjoy it without. I hate to have you buy all the ingredients and then not enjoy, but it might be worth a try!
Cheyanne @ No Spoon Necessary says
The gift of a delicious salad recipe is a wonderful thing! I’m so happy she chose to give the recipe to you and you chose to share it with all of us, because this salad looks seriously scrumptious! Definately going to be making this soon! Cheers 🙂
Julie says
It is definitely my new favorite Cheyanne! Hope you do get the chance to try it!
Loryl says
if you’ve never had the freeze dried sweet corn you’re missing out!
It is just the craziest thing and adds so much to any salad.
I’ve used it in a southwest chicken salad and it’s fabulous!
This recipe looks and sounds delicious.
Can’t wait to try it out.
Annie says
This salad looks divine! I’m not a huge fan of arugula. Have you tried it with baby spinach or spring mix? I’m wondering if it will affect the flavor too much if I swap the greens! Thanks!
Julie says
Annie, you could definitely swap out the arugula for your favorite green. Enjoy!
Carine says
Hi Julie !
I made this meal yesterday, i followed the recipe, it was awfully good !!! In France, we don’t have the corn you used, but we have grilled salted corn (very crispy). Thank you so much for this good recipe, fresh, flavorfull, very nutritive.
Julie says
Carine, I’m so glad you enjoyed! And that grilled salted corn sounds amazing! Thanks for saying hi!
gwen campbell says
I made this tonight and I was very excited since it was made over to be outstanding. No one in my family liked it. Even my daughter who loves pesto didn’t like it.
Julie says
Bummer, sorry to hear that :0(
Page O'Connell says
I have been dying to make this, and took it to a big party last night. I was hoping it would be as good as it looked. It was INSANELY beyond! I couldn’t stop eating it and everyone has been calling me all day to get the recipe. My new all-time-favorite-going-to-take-it-to-every-event- dish. Thanks so much for sharing this, Julie. You rock!
Dana says
This looks and sounds amazingly delicious! Is there any substitution for buttermilk you can recommend?
Julie says
I think it would be possible to substitute maybe some plain yogurt or sour cream with a little milk to thin it out – but I haven’t tried that. Is your reason for needing a substitution to avoid dairy or otherwise?
Erin says
Hi Julie,
For the freeze-dried corn, would it be okay to use regular corn? Will it make the salad drastically different?
Julie says
Hi Erin – You can use regular corn if you like. I just like the crunch of the freeze dried corn.
Kay Bateman says
Before I make this, I was wondering about the changes you made. If Becky’s salad was so good and everyone loved it, why did you change it, or were these changes that Becky had made to the original recipe she had?