Endive Boats with Bacon, Walnuts, Cranberries & Gorgonzola

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Appetizers are essential for Thanksgiving dinner.

But you don’t want your guests to overeat. Especially if you’re not sure that your turkey is 100% delicious (you’re going to need that hunger factor).

Veggie platters can be dull, and cheese platters can be too heavy.

Solution: the endive.

Fill the bite-size leaves with cheese, bacon, nuts and dried fruit, and drizzle with honey. Unless you have 20 of these (which actually might be hard to not do), guests will still be hungry for dinner, but satisfied with some rich fall flavors.

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Endive Boats with Bacon, Walnuts, Cranberries & Gorgonzola
Prep Time
30 mins
 
Author: The Sea Salt
Ingredients
  • 3-4 large Belgian endives, outer leaves removed (and any leaves that don't look great), washed and dried *see notes
  • 1/2 cup cooked and crumbled crispy bacon, about 8 oz
  • 1/2 cup toasted and chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
  • 1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 1-2 tsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • optional chopped parsley to garnish
Instructions

  1. Combine bacon, walnuts and cranberries in a medium bowl. 

  2. Add gorgonzola, honey and olive oil and combine again with a light hand. Season with salt and pepper to taste. The mixture shouldn't be swimming in oil or honey, it should be just enough to hold the mixture together. 

     

  3. Fill endives with about 1 Tbsp of mixture depending on how big the leaf is. Lay out on a platter and serve. 

Recipe Notes
  • To separate endives I find it easiest to trim the bottom about 1/2 inch-1 inch (depending on how large the endive is) so that the leaves just fall away, and trimming more as you get to the smaller inner leaves. Only use the crisp leaves that don't have any brown on the edges. If there is someone working in the produce section when I buy these I like to ask them to trim off any outer leaves that look desirable and they always do it for me. It is hard to tell you exactly how many leaves you will get from each one since they can vary greatly in size, so if you need to buy one or two extra just to safe that is a good call. 
  • To cook bacon I trim the whole stack into 2 inch pieces and render them down in a large cast iron pan over medium heat- I find that it gives you the most even cook. 

Endive Boats with Bacon, Walnuts, Cranberries & Gorgonzola Endive Boats with Bacon, Walnuts, Cranberries & Gorgonzola




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