Too often, restaurant salads cost as much as an entrée – but don’t fill you up. This is NOT one of those salads. This chopped Italian salad recipe is ideal if you want to get full on salad.

How To Make A Really Great Chopped Italian Salad

A chopped salad is a salad that contains a variety of ingredients that are cut in roughly the same size.

Here’s what you need to know to make a really great chopped Italian salad:

• Ingredients: A variety of fresh ingredients makes for a tasty and filling salad. If you’re looking to save money, you can certainly omit certain ingredients or make cost-effective substitutions (like using a regular cucumber instead of an English cucumber, for example). 
• Size of ingredients: All of your ingredients should be cut in approximately the same size. This makes the salad easy to mix and pick up with a fork. Chopped salads are, as the name suggests, chopped and served all mixed together instead of layered on a plate. 
• Dressing: You can buy Italian dressing ready-made, or make it yourself using this simple recipe:
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
    • Whisk all ingredients together, or place in a lidded jar and shake until incorporated.

Make It Paleo-Friendly

• Omit Parmesan cheese
• Purchase nitrate-free salami
• Purchase (or make) a sugar-free Italian dressing

Need A Good, Hearty Salad Recipe?

If you have high expectations for a salad (read: delicious, filling, flavorful), check out these recipes:

• Broccoli, salami, sweet onion salad
• Kitchen sink pea salad
• Indian-spiced chickpea and peanut salad
• Falafel salad
• 1905 salad

Continue to Content

Chopped Italian Salad

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Cut all salad ingredients roughly the same size.

Print

Ingredients

• 2 heads of romaine lettuce
• 1/2 English cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• 1/4 red onion
• 1/2 cup Kalamata olives
• 8 mini sweet peppers
• 6 pepperoncini peppers 
• 12 salami slices
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• Italian dressing

Instructions

1. Prep ingredients: Cut all salad ingredients into bite-sized pieces. The goal is to have most of the ingredients about the same size.
2. Mix all ingredients in a large salad bowl, or prepare individual plates. Serve with Italian dressing.

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