I’ve always loved a good Italian chopped salad, but I usually don’t trust the quality of all those ingredients at a restaurant. A chopped salad from a restaurant will almost always contain highly processed meats, conventional produce that I prefer to have organic and dressings made with refined, highly processed oils that can be problematic and very inflammatory. (Click here for more on why I prefer home cooking as much as possible, rather than eating out).

This week, I decided to make own Italian chopped salad — and man, was it good! I included all of my favorite ingredients and opted to make this one vegetarian. However, you could definitely add in some chopped high-quality deli meat, or omit the cheese and make it entirely plant-based. It would still be delicious and very filling.

How I like to serve Italian Chopped Salad

I love that this salad works with a meal or AS a meal. It would be a perfect lunch or great for a salad jar you could make ahead and bring to work or on an airplane.

I recently made it for a special dinner and served it with pasta (check out my recipe for Easy Homemade Pasta Sauce – you’ll love it!).

Italian Chopped Salad

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews

• Author: Kaleifornian
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 6 servings 1x

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Description

This Italian chopped salad is a healthy, vegetarian twist on a delicious classic. Though you could certainly add some meat, you won’t miss it at all! I can’t get enough of the combination of briny olives, acidity from the pepperoncinis, filling protein from the garbanzo beans, sweetness from the cherry tomatoes, crunch from the lettuce and cucumbers, creaminess from the mozzarella balls — and artichoke hearts and hearts of palm are always a treat in my book. 

Feel free to make this your own and adjust the amounts depending on what you like. I know a few people who might want more pepperoncinis (I’m looking at you John, James and Dorothy!), you could substitute the mozzarella for Parmesan cheese (lower amount of lactose) or omit the dairy entirely.

I recently served this with an Italian meal for a special occasion, but this could certainly be a meal on it’s own. It would make for a delicious lunch or salad jar! 

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 small boxes of little gem lettuce, chopped (romaine or another crunch lettuce would also work well)
• 1 large handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 2 Persian cucumbers, chopped (or about 1/4 of a seedless English cucumber)
• 1/2 jar of hearts of palm, chopped
• 1 jar artichoke hearts packed in water, chopped (packed in olive oil is fine too, but most that are packed in oil are with canola or soybean oil, which I avoid)*  
• 1 small jar of olives, chopped (roughly 1/4 cup)
• 1/4 jar of pepperoncinis, chopped (roughly 1/4 cup)
• 1 jar garbanzo beans, rinsed and dried as much as possible* 
• 3–5 small mozzarella balls, sliced or quartered
• Vinaigrette dressing – my go-to is a generous drizzle of EVOO, a few splashes of champagne vinegar, salt and pepper

* To avoid adding these items when they are very wet, I recommend letting them air our in a colander or laying them on a dish towel to remove excess water. 

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Instructions

1. Place chopped lettuce at the bottom of your serving bowl
2. Arrange remaining ingredients in sections on top of the lettuce
3. Drizzle with vinaigrette, toss 
4. Taste and adjust seasoning and topping quantities according to your taste

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Notes

This recipe yields a large salad, about 6 servings. You can easily scale it up or down.

I recommend trying to find olives, hearts of palm, garbanzo beans, and artichoke hearts that are in glass jars rather than cans (pepperoncinis are usually jarred). Most cans contain some kind of plastic lining that’s transferred to the foods they contain, which I try to avoid as much as possible. Even “BPA free” cans can still have another bisphenol that’s just as problematic.