Ever try to stuff a huge piece of lettuce, dripping with salad dressing, into your mouth? It’s my salad discomfort zone. My solution is the chopped salad.
I go through salad phases, and my latest one is chopped salads. An easy chopped salad to make is this version of a chef salad, chopped a bit more than usual. That’s all. Nothing fancy. Finely chopping makes a big difference because the pieces are bite size, so you can get more variety in one forkful. You can tell I think a lot about the best way to enjoy a salad. I’m a salad lover. And feel free to chop even more so than I have in the picture.
The photos in this post don’t show chopped hard-boiled egg or the cherry tomatoes, but I usually add those as well, so I recommend doing so. Also, feel free to substitute anything, but it’s good to get a bit of salty olives on top, especially if you’re not going to add chopped cured meat.
The dressing is a basic vinaigrette, with fresh herbs. If you don’t have fresh herbs on hand, dried will be fine.
Signing off from cool Seattle. I’m certain we set a record, or got close to a record, for the coolest summer ever. Sigh.
So glad we got to play in the surf while in New York.
Chopped Chef Salad
Salad ingredients
- 1 head of romaine lettuce, sliced and diced
- 1 red pepper, sliced and diced into small cubes
- 2-3 slices of organic cured meat (I like turkey bacon) finely diced into small cubes
- 1 cucumber, sliced and diced into small cubes
- about 8 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- 1 hard-boiled egg, sliced and diced into cubes (not in the picture)
- about 6 kalamata olives, pitted and diced
Herb Vinaigrette
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup of fresh herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro is what I had on hand)
- 1/8 teaspoon sea salt (optional)
- drizzle of honey (optional)
Method
- Combine all the salad ingredients on a plate or in a bowl. I layer from the bottom up: lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, and then the rest on top.
- Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in a food processor or blender and whirl it around until the herbs are finely chopped and all is well mixed (emulsified).
- When ready to serve, pour the dressing over the salad.
- Enjoy!
- I store the dressing at room temperature for up to a week.
Ina Gawne
August 15, 2011 at 6:13 amI am your neighbor – Victoria B.C. We too have had the coolest summer I can remember. I am still picking lettuce in August! Not that I am complaining….but still, a little extra heat would have been nice! Not much zucchini in my garden this year. I love chopped salads…the only way to go!
Karen
August 15, 2011 at 6:53 amThank you. Especially for the nut flour recipes… The fig newtons are my favorite I think though I haven’t yet tried the cashew bread. I love your recipes.
I’m with you on the coolest summer. I’m south of you in the mid Willamette Valley in Oregon. Feels like fall the past couple of days. How can we have fall when we skipped summer? My tomatos are just not happy…. I have yet to have one ripen. Hard year that way.
Thanks for a great blog!