Enjoy this roasted vegetables with fried goat cheese salad recipe during the colder months. The roasted root vegetables pair perfectly with the tangy fried goat cheese pieces for a delicious vegetarian salad!
Happy November <- yup! November! It’s November, and I’m kind of in-denial-yet-super-excited-about-the-holidays. This year I’m really planning ahead for Thanksgiving and have some awesome recipes I’m really excited to share with you guys over the next few weeks.
During the fall, you always see root vegetables like beets and carrots in abundance, and I feel like they are not highlighted nearly enough. So today I’m sharing one of my favorite ways to enjoy roasted root vegetables – and that is in a warm salad, with fried goat cheese.
The first time I tried making fried goat cheese, it was a mess. It was as if the goat cheese melted immediately and didn’t hold it’s shape. I ended up with a skillet full of goat cheese breadcrumbs. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not what I was going for. So I tried again, I found the perfect way to fry goat cheese for salads so that it keeps its shape: you freeze the goat cheese to harden it ahead of time. By freezing the goat cheese a little, it holds its shape, and doesn’t immediately melt when frying it up. YUM! I also found that all you need is a little bit of milk to get the breadcrumbs to stick. I tried it with both eggs and milk, and with eggs the goat cheese and breadcrumbs aren’t as delicate. It turns into something where your main flavor is thick breading. But, if you dunk the goat cheese in a little bit of milk and then coat the with breadcrumbs, you get this amazing light and airy texture and the goat cheese flavor is still front and center!
For Thanksgiving I always make roasted squash and sweet potatoes and make this 5 ingredient honey and goat cheese appetizer, this year I’m going to be including this roasted vegetables and fried goat cheese salad, because it just is so delicious!!
Other recipes you might enjoy:
- 5 Ingredient Raw Honey and Goat Cheese Appetizer
- Portabella Goat Cheese Panini
- Roasted Winter Vegetable Rainbow Salad
Roasted Vegetables with Fried Goat Cheese Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- For the roasted vegetables:
- 1 lb beets peeled, cut into 1 -2 inch chunks
- 1 lb carrots cut into 1/2 inch to 1 inch cunks
- 1/2 red onion roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- For the fried goat cheese:
- 4 oz goat cheese I usually buy one of those small logs with pepper on it, plain is just fine
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/3 cup Italian style panko breadcrumbs you could use regular breadcrumbs too
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
For the roasted vegetables:
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Put beet, carrot and red onion pieces directly onto the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and garlic salt.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes, until vegetables are tender with poked with a fork. Remove from oven, and transfer vegetables to a bowl.
For the fried goat cheese:
- Freeze goat cheese for 30 minutes, or until firm to touch.
- Cut goat cheese into discs, and cut each disk into 3rd or 4ths, so that you have about 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces.
- Pour milk into one bowl, and breadcrumbs into another bowl.
- Over medium-high heat, heat olive oil in a large frying pan (preferably nonstick). Let oil heat up while you prepare the goat cheese pieces.
- One at a time, take a piece of goat cheese, dredge it through the milk, and then the breadcrumbs, pressing the breadcrumbs onto the goat cheese so that all sides are covered. Put piece of goat cheese into the frying pan and repeat until all the goat cheese is in the pan.
- Fry the goat cheese for 1 minute, then gently flip it and fry it for another minute, until both sides are slightly golden brown. Remove from heat, and transfer fried goat cheese pieces onto a paper towel lined plate.
- Put goat cheese pieces on top of roasted vegetables, stir, and enjoy.
- This salad serves great both warm and cold.
Cheri says
Hi Phi, great tip to use milk, love roasted veggies. These look spectacular!!!
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much, using milk was the total key to making fried goat cheese 🙂
Jess says
What a delicious recipe – I want to try it! It looks deliciously perfect for FALL!
Sweetphi says
This is such a fall recipe, and I love eating seasonal, don’t you?
Little Cooking Tips says
Excellent recipe dear Phi! We love roasted veggies (haven’t tried beets this way though!) and loved what you did with the fried goat cheese.
As Greeks, we’re accustomed to A LOT of fried cheese (called saganaki) since we were kids:) So, as you guessed the moment we saw this in the recipe we got pretty excited:):)
What we do when we fry various hard and semi-hard cheeses here, is make a realtively thick batter with water and flour (sometimes spices may be added as well) and we dip thick (0.5 inch) cheese slices in that and fry them in olive oil. The other alternative is using halloumi as well:)
We haven’t tried the milk and breadcrumbs version before, and we really want to see how it turns out.
Thank you for another yummy recipe sweetie!
Sending you lots of love,
Panos and Mirella
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much for your lovely comment Panos and Mirella! I am familiar with saganaki -I’ve had it at Greek restaurants, and it’s always so good!
I have tried making a batter before, but I have to say, after trying this milk/breadcrumbs way, I’m totally hooked 🙂
Glad you enjoyed the recipe!