Rancho La Puerta Spa Spiced Apple Salad

This was an easy and healthy Spa Cuisine salad, courtesy of Rancho La Puerta Spa in Mexico, and the SpaIndex.com Spa Cuisine collection. You may view the complete recipe here.

I had a couple apples going a bit soft and I remembered I wanted to try a recipe where you shave them thin and make an apple slaw.

This salad has a dressing of yogurt, lime juice, apple juice. It's tossed with raisins or cranberries, coconut, sunflower seeds, vanilla and cinnamon. I made a few adaptations -- cranberries in place of raisins and I omitted sunflower seeds -- because I forgot to add them. It's really tasty, tart, not sweet (although there is a bit of sweet when you bite into a cranberry or piece of coconut), and is both tropical and warm and spicy at the same time. I think it would be great to swap out the coconut with walnuts, for a different taste and crunch.

Since Apple Desserts are my least favorite of all (apple pie, apple muffins, yawwwwn), but I like apples in most savory dishes (sandwiches, salads, curries, stuffings), I was happy to learn a unique and more "savory" way to use my apples. Still, this recipe will appeal to children who will think it's a treat. It's also perfect for those "Ladies Who Lunch" meals.

While the recipe makes six servings. This salad is easily adaptable for one person by just tossing a cut up apple with a handful of the loose ingredients, and then a splash of each wet ingredient, a shake of spice, and you're there, in a few minutes flat.

I have few similar Apple Slaw recipes from other spa resorts, so come this fall, I may need to test each one and see which I like best -- but this one is darn good with that fresh taste of lime.