Southern Pear Salad

Do you remember your mother or grandmother making pear salad for Sunday Dinner? Growing up, without fail, we always had pear salad on our Sunday Dinner table. I remember clearly that it had to be served on a bed of iceberg lettuce. Any self respecting Southern cook wouldn’t dare forget that bed of lettuce!

My mother would assign the pear salad making job to my sister and me. Our favorite part was placing the cherries on top of the pears and eating the cherries. We ate a cherry for every cherry that we placed on the pears right out of the jar!  My mother never complained about the empty jar, in fact, she acted like she never even noticed. She just bought a new jar of cherries every week.

I’ve been making pear salad a lot lately for our Sunday Dinners, and I had forgotten how delicious and beautiful this classic Southern salad was. I’m so happy to rediscover it again. It’s just amazing how food can make you feel so nostalgic.

You won’t believe how easy it is to make. All you need is just 5 ingredients, can of  pear halves or sliced pears, freshly grated extra sharp or sharp cheddar cheese, (Freshly grated cheese makes this salad taste so much better) mayonnaise, maraschino cherries, and iceberg lettuce leaves.

A few tips:  Be sure to drain your cherries on a paper towel so the cherry juice doesn’t drip down on your pear salad.  Also a tip on the cheese, last time I made this, I grated my cheese extra fine and we loved it.

This is great to make for a busy weeknight. If you have small children, let them help make the salad. It’s a healthy side dish for them and they will have fun making it and eating the cherries too!

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