Go Back
Print Pin

Winter Root Vegetable Salad with Brie Cranberry Sauce

What I like about this particular recipe is the warm Brie Cranberry Sauce. Thinking beyond the world of macaroni & cheese, I first learned about cheese sauces as a kid, when Cheese Wiz and fondue sets were more popular than they are today. Melted Raclette cheese is another example of cheese being served in melted form today, almost as a sauce, although I have yet to try it.
I came across a warm Brie Cheese Sauce for the first time at a cooking class focused on sous-vide cooking, where the melted cheese was blended with a sweetened apple compote, and then served on top of compressed and briefly cooked apples with some whipped cream and nuts. It was revelatory, and the apples paired so incredibly well with the warm Brie & Apple sauce.
In this recipe, we combine some melted Brie cheese with a warm blended cranberry sauce, which gets served with roasted root vegetables & a small amount of chopped kale. The Brie Cranberry Sauce is also incredible to serve with something like chicken breast, or as an additional sauce option when you are serving roasted turkey.
This root vegetable dish with Brie cranberry sauce could be considered a side dish, or a warm salad. Omit the bacon if you prefer to make this dish vegetarian.

Ingredients

  • 2 large-sized Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½” pieces
  • 2 large-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½” pieces
  • 1 large-sized turnip, peeled and cut into ½” pieces
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into ½” pieces
  • ½ rutabaga, peeled & cut into ½” pieces
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil, or more if needed, for generously coating the root vegetables before roasting
  • 8 strips of thick-sliced bacon of your preference, cut into thin 1/8” thick lardons
  • 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, for cooking bacon and red onion
  • 1 red onion, cut into 1/8” slices
  • ½ cup dried cranberries
  • ½ cup walnuts
  • ½ cup pecans
  • 2 cups kale, cleaned and chopped
  • 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • Kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper
  • 1 can prepared Cranberry sauce, or homemade if you have fresh cranberries!
  • 16 oz Brie cheese, rind removed
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 2 Tbsp fresh chives, finely sliced

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 425F.
  • Prepare two sheet trays with parchment paper.
  • In a large mixing bowl, coat the Russet potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, and rutabaga in vegetable oil.
  • Season the well-oiled root vegetables with kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper, and toss to coat the vegetables evenly.
  • Transfer the root vegetables to the sheet trays, and spread out the pieces evenly.
  • Roast the vegetables at 425F for about 40 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, and cook the root vegetables until they are completely tender.
  • While the root vegetables are cooking, place your bacon lardons in a saute pan with 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • Increase heat to medium, and cook the lardons until they have been cooked through.
  • Use a slotted spoon to remove the lardons from the saute pan, and reserve the lardons on a piece of paper towel on a plate for later.
  • Cook the sliced red onion in the same pan that was used to cook the bacon lardons.
  • *Scrape the bottom of the pan to incorporate the cooked bacon flavor with the onions as they cook. Add a spoonful or two of water if you need to deglaze the pan.
  • When the onions are cooked, after about 10 minutes, remove them from the heat and set them aside with the bacon while you wait for the root vegetables to finish roasting.
  • In the meantime, place the dried cranberries in a small bowl with 1 cup of hot water and allow them to plump in the hot water for 10 minutes.
  • When the cranberries have soaked in the hot water for ten minutes, drain the water from the cranberries.
  • Lightly toast the walnuts and pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat, moving the pan constantly to avoid burning the nuts
  • *If you are toasting nuts and accidentally burn them—just throw them out, start again, and act like it never happened.
  • When the nuts are toasted, remove them from the heat and set them aside to cool.
  • Lightly dress the cleaned and chopped kale in a large bowl with the extra virgin olive oil, and gently season with some kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper.
  • When the roasted vegetables are cooked, carefully remove them from the oven and combine them with the kale.
  • Add the cooked bacon lardons and sauteed onions from earlier.
  • Add the toasted walnuts and pecans from earlier.
  • Toss the entire mixture together.
  • Taste, and season with kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper, if desired.
  • For the Brie Cranberry sauce, warm the cranberry sauce on the stove until it is hot.
  • *If using chunky cranberry sauce with whole cranberries, quickly (and carefully) blend the warm cranberry sauce using an immersion blender until it has reached a smooth consistency.
  • Fold in the Brie cheese and honey, turn off the heat, and mix until combined.
  • When the sauce is ready and the root vegetables are cooked, it is time to serve.
  • Serve the roasted root vegetable, onion, bacon, kale, and nut mixture in large bowls or on plates, topped with some of the Brie Cranberry Sauce, and garnished with finely-sliced fresh chives.

Notes

The sauce can be reserved and reheated for use later in the week.