How to Cook Halloumi, and the Salad to Put It On

Warm Halloumi Salad with Tomato, Olives and Toasted Walnuts

Serves 2 · Ready in 15 minutes

Halloumi is one of the few cheeses you can put straight into a hot pan without it collapsing into a puddle, and that single fact is the reason this salad eats like a proper meal rather than a side. You get salty, golden, slightly squeaky cheese sitting on cold leaves, with lemon and chili cutting through the middle of it.

Everything else here is doing a specific job. The tomato and cucumber bring water and sweetness, the olives double down on the salt, and the walnuts give you something to bite.

Ingredients

• 3 oz Stacked Farm Mixed Leaf (about 4 cups, lightly packed)
• 7 oz halloumi, sliced about half an inch thick
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 Persian cucumber, sliced, or half an English cucumber
• ⅓ cup pitted olives, Kalamata for preference
• ¼ cup walnuts, toasted
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lemon, juice and zest
• Pinch of red pepper flakes

Note on the halloumi: most US blocks come in at 8 oz, so use the whole thing. A little extra cheese has never ruined this dish.

Method

1. Pat the halloumi slices dry and pan-fry them until golden on both sides.
2. Combine the spring mix, tomatoes, cucumber and olives in a wide bowl.
3. Add the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and red pepper flakes, and toss gently.
4. Top the salad with the warm halloumi.
5. Finish with the toasted walnuts and serve straight away.

Can't find halloumi?

It's worth hunting for, and most larger grocery stores now carry it in the specialty cheese case rather than with the block cheddar. If yours doesn't, the cheeses that behave the same way in a hot pan are queso para freír or queso panela, which you'll find in the Latin section, Finnish bread cheese if your store stocks it, and paneer at an Indian grocer. All of them hold their shape and take on color. None of them are as salty as halloumi, so add a little more olive and a pinch of salt to the leaves if you swap.

Why it works

Salt is doing most of the heavy lifting, between the halloumi and the olives, so the lemon and chilli are there to stop it getting one-note. The cold leaves underneath are the reset button. Every mouthful goes from warm and rich to cool and fresh, which is the whole reason a warm salad is worth the extra pan.

Make it yours

A drained tin of chickpeas turns this into a fuller dinner without changing its character. Torn mint works beautifully alongside the lemon if you want it fresher, and toasted almonds are a fine swap for walnuts if that's what's in the cupboard.

Nothing to wash, nothing to dry

Warm halloumi waits for nobody, so this is a salad you want to build fast. Our mixed leaf is grown indoors without pesticides and never washed, which means it comes out of the pack clean, dry and ready to go into the bowl. No rinsing, no spinning, no wet leaves watering down your dressing while the cheese cools on the bench.