This easy recipe for a summer salad comes from French-speaking Switzerland. It pairs fresh zucchini with Bleuchâtel cheese. The name Bleuchâtel derives from the place where this Swiss blue cheese is made: Les Ponts-de-Martel in the canton of Neuchâtel.
How to make it:
Zucchini Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts and Blue Cheese
Adapted from Les recettes des Grand-Mère, Tome 5 (2011).
Contains: milk, hazelnuts
Ingredients:
50 grams (about a 1/2 cup) whole hazelnuts
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons toasted hazelnut oil (or walnut or olive oil)
2 small zucchini
50 grams (about a 1/2 cup) Bleuchâtel cheese (or another blue cheese), crumbled or in small slices/pieces
1 handful of fresh chives or parsley, finely chopped
Instructions:
1. Roughly chop the hazelnuts and toast them in a pan over a hot burner, stirring them often so they don’t turn black. When they become lightly toasted and fragrant, take them off the heat. Then, set aside and let them cool.
2. Next, whisk together the lemon juice and oil to make the dressing for the salad. Set aside.
3. If you have one, use a mandoline to slice the zucchini into very thin rounds (a knife will work too, it just takes more time, and the slices are less uniform—at least when I do it!).
4. In a large bowl, toss the sliced zucchini with the salad dressing. Make sure the zucchini is evenly coated with the dressing.
5. Spread the zucchini on a platter. Sprinkle the zucchini with hazelnuts and blue cheese, so they’re evenly dispersed. Finally, sprinkle the finely chopped chives over the entire salad.
Updated: December 28, 2022