Creamy goat cheese, sweet dried apples, and toasted pecans come together beautifully with fresh spicy arugula in this deliciously satisfying Apple and Goat Cheese Arugula Salad.

The other day I was reminiscing with my sister about our favorite orders at restaurants as kids. She loved her potato skins or mozzarella sticks. Over on my end of the table it was either plain buttered pasta, shrimp scampi or fish and chips, you know, beautiful hues of browns and yellows.

As a kid, salads were boring things that boring adults would eat when they didn’t want to have any fun. Oh how times have changed. Fast forward 12 years and I pretty much eat a salad every day.

Salads get a bad reputation. Restaurants either neglect them and opt for bland garden salads that have no flavor or they load them up with crazy amounts of cheeses and dressings.

Luckily it looks like salads are making a bit of a resurgence with places like Sweet Green and Chop’t. I’m such a big fan of adding protein, healthy fat and grains to salads to transform them into easy, delicious, satisfying meals that are also packed with veggies.

This salad is pretty much all of my favorite things in a bowl. The spicy arugula pairs so well with the creamy goat cheese, sweet dried apples and crunchy pecans. Farro grains and homemade tahini dressing (click the link for the recipe) tie everything together. This salad isn’t going to leave you hungry or stuffed, just the right amount of satisfaction you’re looking for from a lunch or dinner. This is recipe is on my regular rotation and once you try it, I think you’ll be adding it to yours too!