This wonderful salad recipe is a meal in itself and was inspired by the Fuji Apple Salad served at Panera. It consists of fresh apple slices, gorgonzola, tomatoes, and pepitas and is topped with a white balsamic vinaigrette. You won't be able to get enough of Panera's Fuji Apple Salad after you've had it, and once you have, you won't be able to stop thinking about it. To such an extent that becoming proficient in its preparation at home may enable you to cut back on some of the money, you spend on it. The good news is that this salad is ridiculously simple to recreate, and you won't have any trouble at all putting it together in the comfort of your own home kitchen. Today, in addition to providing a recipe that is an exact replica of Panera's Fuji Apple Salad, we will discuss cost-effective alternatives to the restaurant's lettuce mix, quick-fix options for the sliced chicken, the brand of apple chips that Panera uses, and even how to make the salad in advance for a week's worth of lunches. 
When it comes to producing a delicious salad, the key is to combine a variety of ingredients in a way that allows them to complement one another in the serving bowl. Chicken breasts that have been sliced very thinly, a combination of greens (we'll get back to that one), apple chips, tomato wedges, thinly sliced onion, blue cheese, and pecans, and that Fuji apple dressing that we are all familiar with and adore are the components that go into making the Fuji apple salad offered at Panera. Panera has the perfect balance of lettuce in its salad mix. It has an abundance of flavor and the ideal balance of sweet and bitter components. They use romaine lettuce for the majority of the mix, which lends the salad a sweetness as well as a reviving crunch from its use of romaine lettuce. After that, they bring in some other greens such as kale, arugula, and radicchio, all of which impart a flavor that is slightly more bitter than the original combination. However, the total cost could increase significantly if you purchased all three of those types of greens, which is why I recommend that you call it a day and choose baby arugula as your green of choice instead. 
In order to prevent the chicken from becoming the focus of attention when you serve this salad, you should slice the chicken breasts as thinly as you possibly can. The apple chips and the dressing are truly the standout components of this dish, as I'm sure we're all well aware. The chicken, on the other hand, gives the salad more solidity, and the protein in it will help you feel fuller for a longer period of time. Thank you for your interest. In order to make this salad, I use the recipe for my chicken that is roasted in the oven. It takes relatively little effort to prepare, yet the results are consistently excellent. On the other hand, if you're pressed for time, you could go to the supermarket and get a rotisserie chicken. Then, instead of using dark meat for this dish, you could slice up the breasts and save them for another night. There are currently some grocery stores that sell cooked and shredded chicken breast of the white flesh variety, and this would be another fantastic addition to your salad if you could get it. In addition to the chicken, additional savory components of the Panera Fuji apple salad include the finely sliced onion, which also contributes a great hint of spiciness, as well as the salty, creamy blue cheese. 
Both of these components are optional. Again, something that should definitely be included in the salad but isn't is the blue cheese. When mixed with other bold flavors, blue cheese's intensity is reduced, but it still has a great deal of depth and complexity on its own. Apples and blue cheese create the ideal balance of salty and sweet flavors in a dish, and if you were to omit the blue cheese, you would undoubtedly be missing out. If you aren't a die-hard fan of blue cheese, you may ease into the flavor by using a milder variety of the cheese, such as Maytag or young Gorgonzola. As was mentioned earlier, the key to creating a delicious salad is to select a variety of components and figure out how to combine them in such a way that they complement one another. We are going to need something sweet to counteract the savory and salty flavors that are going on here. This salad has a beautiful sweetness thanks to the addition of crisp pecans and vivid tomatoes, but no ingredient can fully compare to the irresistibly crunchy and scrumptiously delicious Seneca apple chips. 
The Fuji Apple Dressing at Panera is fantastic, and the restaurant did a fantastic job with it. I attempted to recreate it in my own home, and if I'm being completely honest with you, I can tell you that I did not set the bar very high for myself. I had every intention of trying once again, but then I spotted it: a bottle of Panera Fuji Apple Vinaigrette Dressing sitting there next to the produce department at Target. I immediately changed my plans and decided to use frozen apple juice concentrate instead of concentrated apple juice by the bottle. I quickly grabbed two bottles, and then I was done. Complete success has been achieved. There are a lot of reasons to like this salad, and I could list them again, component by component, but instead of doing that, I'll spare you the repetition by leaving you with this: The preparation of this salad at home couldn't be simpler. This salad recipe will make enough food for you to have at least four lunches and dinners if you aren't planning on using it as an appetizer for a party (which, by the way, is something that I highly recommend you do because your guests will absolutely adore you for doing), but if you are, this salad recipe won't make nearly as much. 
After you have prepared all of your components, place them in their own individual containers and place them in the refrigerator. This will prevent the flavors of the individual ingredients from blending together. After that, put the salad together on a daily basis from scratch. It's as easy as taking a pinch (or a handful) from each jar, dumping it in a bowl, and mixing it with some pre-made dressing that you've already purchased. Which, when you really think about it, is a lot more convenient and a lot more cost-effective than going out of your way to hitting up a Panera drive-thru when you consider it.
💰 Tenfold your income 💎