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