I love a good salad with lots of texture and flavors, and this Autumn Salad nails it. Sweet pears, honey Dijon dressing, crunchy pecans, and creamy gorgonzola cheese create a delicious fall dish that’s hard to resist.
Fall Salad with Pears and Gorgonzola
This Autumn Salad with Pears and Gorgonzola is a healthy addition to your fall table. The combination of fresh ingredients delivers a burst of flavor in every bite. It’s simple and elegant, perfect side dish for quick dinners and the holidays. For more fall salad ideas, try this Leftover Turkey Harvest Cobb Salad and Autumn Kale Salad with Chicken.
Why You’ll Love This Autumn Salad Recipe
I love adding apples or pears to my fall salads, they add the perfect crunch and sweetness! Add some pecans for crunch, and some creamy cheese and I am in heaven! I first shared this recipe way back October 2008 when I started this website. It’s a recipe I make again and again each fall.
- Perfect Blend of Flavors: The sweetness of the pears and honey balances the sharpness of the gorgonzola and red wine vinegar.
- Quick and Easy: This fall salad is ready in minutes–Whip up a quick vinaigrette, cut the pear, and mix everything in a large bowl.
- Dietary Restrictions: This healthy autumn salad works for a variety of diets, including vegetarian, Weight Watchers-friendly, and low-carb.
If you make this fall salad recipe, I would love to see it. Tag me in your photos or videos on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook!
Autumn Salad Ingredients
With its sweet, salty, and tangy flavors, you’ll want to make this autumn salad all season long. Scroll to the recipe card for the exact measurements.
- Pears: Any ripe pears, like Bartlett, Bosc, or Anjou, will work.
- Gorgonzola is a strong, pungent cheese that contrasts nicely with the sweet pears.
- Leafy Greens: For extra texture, use a mix of greens, such as baby greens, baby spinach, arugula, or radicchio.
- Pecans add crunch.
- Autumn Salad Dressing: Red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, black pepper, and olive oil make the best dressing for this pear and gorgonzola salad.
How to Make Autumn Salad
Here’s how to make this easy fall salad with pears and gorgonzola. The recipe card below provides complete instructions.
- Make the Vinaigrette: Whisk the autumn salad dressing ingredients in a bowl or jar.
- Make the Salad: Put the greens, pears, gorgonzola, and pecans in a large bowl.
- How to Serve: Drizzle the vinaigrette over the greens and toss to coat.
Variations
- Fresh Fruit: Swap the pear with an apple.
- Dried Fruit: Add dried cranberries or dates.
- Cheese: Substitute blue cheese or goat cheese.
- Nuts: Replace pecans with walnuts or almonds. For extra flavor, toast them in the oven or in a pan on the stove, or use candied pecans.
- Onions: Add thinly sliced shallots or red onion.
- Acid: Sub apple cider vinegar or lemon juice for red wine vinegar.
- Sweetener: Use maple syrup instead of honey.
What to Serve with This Autumn Salad
This impressive yet simple autumn salad is excellent for everything from a quick weeknight dinner to your Thanksgiving table. Below are some serving suggestions:
- Holidays: Make all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, like turkey, green bean casserole, and potato gratin, to go with this salad.
- Fall Dinner: Try it with pork chops and applesauce or roast beef with mashed potatoes or maple-roasted butternut squash.
- Make It a Meal: Add a piece of baked salmon or grilled chicken to the salad for a complete meal.
Storage
- Eat Immediately: Once you toss everything together, eat it immediately. If stored, the greens will wilt, and the pear will brown.
- Prep Ahead: If you’re making this autumn harvest salad for Thanksgiving and want to prep some of it in advance, make the vinaigrette and chop the pecans a day early.
More Autumn Salad Recipes You’ll Love
- Harvest Kale Salad with Roasted Winter Squash
- Fall Brussels Sprout Salad with Apple, Pecans, and Blue Cheese
- Mixed Baby Greens with Pomegranate, Gorgonzola and Pecans
- Kale and Butternut Squash Salad with Pears and Almonds
- Arugula with Pomegranates, Blue Cheese and Pistachios
Autumn Salad with Pears
Ingredients
For the dressing:
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/4 tsp salt
- fresh ground pepper
- 3 tbsp olive oil
For the salad:
- 2 small ripe pears, peeled and diced
- 1/4 cup (2 oz) gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
- 8 oz mixed baby greens, baby spinach, arugula, radicchio, etc.
- 1 oz about 20 halves pecans
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix vinegar, mustard, honey, salt and pepper. Whisk in olive oil and blend.
- In a salad bowl combine baby greens, pears, gorgonzola cheese and pecans.
- When you are ready to serve, add the vinaigrette and toss well. Serve immediately.
Love this salad. We always like a fresh side dish with our Thanksgiving meal. This is perfect. I added dried cranberries this year. Can’t have Thanksgiving without some cranberries. 🙂
This is an amazing salad! I’ve made it a few times already and a staple at any time of year.
Recipe looks delish. I have walnuts, would that be an ok replacement for pecans?
This salad is so amazing – it has the sweetness from the pear, the crunch of the pecans, the wonderful “funk” of the cheese (I used blue cheese), and the delicious dressing (that is now my “go-to” for dressing for other salads, too) that ties it all together. Highly recommend!
This is a wonderful recipe. I’ve made it a few times and each time it’s a hit can’t get enough of it.
Thanks Staza!
We love this salad. Sometimes i sub pineapple. Still excellent!
I will substitute the nuts with chicken since my work is nut free!
We love this salad. The pear.is a perfect contrast to the cheese.
Great salad! We made 4 servings out of it and it wasn’t filling enough for our lunches, so we added a sliced grilled chicken breast from the store deli. That helped a lot. This is truly delicious. Highly recommend.
Thanks Chris!
So easy and SO delicious!!!
Delicious flavor combination!
Loved this recipe! Instead of making a single batch I just prepped the dressing and assembled single servings throughout the week.
This was great . I had to sub apples for the pears because the pears did not ripen in time. I added some golden raisins and grilled some chicken breasts to make this a main dish salad.
Easy and delicious! Served it with a prepared pasta dish from TJ’s as I was too lazy to go to the market. Will keep in my rotation.
Absolutely delicious and so simple.
Great salad! I typically don’t give ratings but this one is worth 5 stars!
Outstanding! I was thinking it was going to be a good salad, but it was absolutely delicious!! So easy to make, simple ingredients, however when all mixed together I felt like I was eating in a fancy restaurant.
Pretty high in carbs. Cannot find a similar texture fruit with lower carbs, any suggestions?
All the flavors of fall. I have swapped out granny smith apples for the pears
Perfect
I loved this so much that the next time I tripled the salad ingredients so we could eat bigger portions. Delicious!
Such a simple and delicious salad. The dressing was delicious. This will be on my rotation since the fiber content meets my dietary needs.
So happy you loved it!
What would be the best sub for honey. I am not allowed to eat it unless pasteurized and none that I have found state that
maple syrup would be great
I had forgotten this one and it’s one of my fall favorites! Time to bring it back to the table!
Yes!!!
Yummy & delicious + easy to make!!!
yes!
I love this salad. It is my go to for Thanksgiving and a family favorite. I add dried cranberries and/or red onions for more color.
Great fall salad.
Yum! I threw in some dried cranberries as well. The dressing is just perfect, and the combination of flavors — salty, musky, sweet, tangy — so good!
My husband and I love this salad. The sweetness of the pears offsets the bite in the gorgonzola. The honey in the dressing offsets the tartness of the red wine vinegar. The nuts and the pears also give it an amazing crunch. This has become one of our weekly go to salads when meal prepping for the week!
This was the best salad I’ve made at home in a very long time!!
This is delicious!!
I made this salad to take to a dinner party with friends. It got rave reviews. Everyone loved it and I now I have been requested to make it again for a future dinner. The only deviation is that I added dried cranberries. Delicious.
YUM!!! I made this last night, along with your buffalo chicken nuggets. While my husband made fries with his chicken, he tried some of my salad. I doubled the dressing recipe in a small glass jar and shook. I had a feeling I would need more dressing for salads later after reading the ingredients. I made a small salad for me, and I used some Bartlett pear with reduced fat blue cheese (had it in the fridge), and drizzled a little dressing on top. This is a good solid salad. So much so, that husband has requested more of it tonight to have with some soup. And that is why I made extra dressing 🙂 This is a hit!!!
I tried this today and did 1 Honeycrisp apple and 1 Pear and it was amazing! Thank you for the recipe!
You can get reduced fat gorg at PUBLIX if they are near you.
I'm loving your salads. Today we had this for lunch, and it makes 3 really large lunch portions. As per usual I lessened the oil, only 2tsp this time. I also used walnuts instead of the pecans since that is all I had on hand. They were really good in the salad. My only mistake was I read the amount of cheese incorrect and only used half of what was called for. I really wish I would have used the correct amount, because the bites with the Gorgonzola were even better than those without. I will definitely make this salad again.
Do you have a special brand of gorgonzola that is gluten-free? I would love to find one that is gluten-free!!
Gorgonzola is cheese. Does it have gluten?
@ Anonymous try goat cheese. I've made a spinach salad using goat cheese, walnuts, and dried cranberries for years and it's great.
@Catherine I also couldn't find reduced fat gorg (the cheese dept person said she'd never even seen it), so I got regular.
Holy toledo. The boy and I made this into a dinner salad last night by adding a simple grilled salmon filet on top. I am more than certain I dreamed about it and I woke up wondering the soonest I could slip it back into my repertoire.
I unfortunately was unable to find reduced fat gorgonzola from Trader Joe's, so I used regular. I also threw in thinly sliced red onion and some craisins. DEVINE!
What could you use instead of Gorgonzola? I am not fond of that cheese.
This was DELICIOUS!!!
Isn't it impressive yet simple!!!
So simple and delicious! I made this salad the other night when we went to our friends' house for dinner the other night. They kept commenting on how I "went all out" and how fancy it was! Little did they know, I threw this together 15 minutes before leaving the house!
We had leftovers (didn't dress the whole salad, but dressed individually) so the next day, I made a lunch salad out of it by tearing a couple pieces of "premium" roasted turkey lunchmeat, and added some sliced "baby bella" mushrooms to it. It was so amazing!!
I never know what kind of pears to buy – what are your favorites? Thanks!
BTW – just discovered this blog last week and I blogged about some recipes I'm very eager to try!
I made this tonight with the sage pork chops, applesauce, and garlic mashed potatoes, but all everyone could say was how delicious this salad was! It is super easy to make. I couldn't find gorgonzola cheese so I used some reduced fat feta cheese instead and it was delicious!
Ok, so this was FABULOUS! The only change I made was just a pinch of sugar to the dressing! I used an organic spring mix since my grocery store didn't have the greens it called for. Delicious!
This sounds wonderful and I love the points value!
I literally tasted the ingredients as I read this! thanks! i can’t wait to put this one together. Thanks for sharing! Can’t wait to see what your next invention is!