Fig, Queso de Valedeon and Endive Salad

Name: Fig, Queso de Valedeon and Endive Salad
Prep time: 30 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: For the endives:; ½ bunch cilantro – finely chopped; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 4 large Belgian endives – cut in half and leaves removed from the core but left intact; For the figs:; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar; 2 pints assorted figs – each fig cut into 1/8; 4 Asian pears – peeled and thinly sliced; 3 green onions – very thinly sliced; 4 oz baby Arugula; 4 oz Quezon de Valdeon (or goat cheese) – crumbled

By Pascale Beale

Updated May 2026

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Photography by Pascale's Kitchen Studio

Total Time 25-30 minutes

Difficulty Easy

Prep Time 25-30 minutes

Cook Time

I have written about my neighbor’s fig tree before. Every time I walk my dog, we come home past the tree. It literally drips with figs. I am so, so tempted to pluck one from the overhanging branches but have resisted temptation. Instead, I come home and make new fig salads. This is one of those. I love the sweet figs and the slightly bitter endives together. You can make this with or without cheese. I found that goat, feta or Queso de Valedon work well.

Preparation

1
Combine the cilantro, olive oil, lemon juice and salt in the bottom of a large bowl and whisk together. Place two salad servers over the vinaigrette and add in the endives leaves.
2
When ready to serve the salad, remove the salad utensils and let the endives leaves fall into the vinaigrette, then very gently toss the leaves. You want them to remain intact and not bruise.
3
Take six to eight of the endive leaves and place them on a salad plate in the shape of a flower so that the root end of each leaf is in the center of the plate. Repeat with each of the eight plates. Divide the fig salad (see below) and spoon it into the center of each ‘flower’. Serve with a nutty cracker.
4
Pour the olive oil and apple cider vinegar in a large bowl and whisk together. Place serving utensils over the vinaigrette. Place all the remaining ingredients on top of the utensils, except for the cheese.
5
When you are ready to serve the salad, and have prepared the plates with the endive ‘flowers’, carefully toss the fig salad. Once tossed, divide it equally amongst the eight salad plates forming a small mound of the fig salad in the center of the endives. Crumble the cheese on top of each salad.

This recipes appears in Salade II — view the book →

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Fig, Queso de Valedeon and Endive Salad

Preparation

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