Episode 028 Italian Salad

Intro: Welcome back everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your Audio Library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Today I have a fresh and delicious dinner idea for you that is kind of a follow-up to episode number 27 where we talked about making a fresh basil vinaigrette. This time we are talking about using that vinaigrette in an Italian salad. If you love to have a salad for dinner or maybe you like to have pasta or Italian-style dinners and you’re not quite sure what to serve on the side besides bread, this big, veggie-filled Italian salad is a great side dish.

Or you can certainly serve it as just the main dish. If you want to, you can even add a little bit of protein to it by doing either my buttermilk, marinated grilled chicken, or I have just a marinated grilled chicken that uses Italian dressing, lemon, garlic, those type of flavors. So I will link both of those recipes right in the show notes for you.

Tips and Tricks: Now, before we get on to the full recipe, I have a couple of salad tips for you that I think you’re going to love. The first tip is to try serving the salad on a platter instead of in a bowl. I find sometimes when you serve salad in a bowl, you toss everything together with the dressing and all of the yummy bits fall to the bottom. But when you serve it on a platter, then each person can grab a section of the platter and they get the perfect amount of lettuce and yumminess. It’s a win-win, right? 

So my next tip actually has to do with serving on the platter. What I recommend is you actually start by tossing the lettuce or the salad, the romaine, or whatever you’re using, with dressing first. Lay that down as a base on the platter, and then in that same bowl, add the veggies, add a little bit of more dressing or vinaigrette, toss the veggies with the vinaigrette, and then pour those on top of the salad. Then you have your perfect balance all the way across. 

Two more quick tips, quick tips, quick tips. That’s kind of hard to say. Two more quick tips for your salad. Number one, don’t make your salad ahead. It was meant to be made and served right away. You don’t want the lettuce or any of those softer vegetables to break down and get mushy. 

Second, don’t overdress your salad. Just lightly dress it and then I recommend adding more salad dressing just on the table or on your little dinner buffet so that people can add more salad dressing as they like. 

Italian Salad Recipe: Those are all my salad tips, so let’s get right into making this big old Italian salad. You’re going to start with one head of romaine or green leaf lettuce. You’re going to wash it, chop it, and make sure it’s pretty well dried. This is another tip. The salad dressing will stick to the lettuce a little bit better if the leaves are dry and not wet. So then go ahead in a large bowl and toss that salad with about three tablespoons of the fresh basil vinaigrette that we talked about in episode 27. 

Get out a big old platter and pour the salad right across the platter. Now in that same bowl that is now empty, you’re going to add one cup of cherry tomatoes that have been halved. One cup of pitted black olives or your favorite pitted Italian olives. Anything will work here. One small raw fennel bulb. You cut the core out of the fennel bulb, cut it in half, and then thinly slice it. It’s delicious In a salad. A 14-ounce can of halved or quartered artichoke hearts. You want to get the artichoke hearts that are in brine and go ahead and drain them and then cut them, or just put them right in the bowl. Half an English cucumber that has been sliced, half a red onion, and again, I’m going to repeat my tip that I always say on my podcast. When you have a red onion after you slice it, run it under cool water, just really quickly, it will rinse away that enzyme that will have the red onions overpowering your salad. So put all of that in a bowl. Add the rest of the basil vinaigrette to the bowl, and then just give everything a really good toss. Then pour those veggies right on top of that romaine that you had previously dressed. You’ll finish by shaving Parmesan cheese, and my tip here is to use a potato peeler or a carrot peeler to shave the Parmesan. Shave the Parmesan into the salad, and then add some of your favorite seasoned croutons, whether they’re store-bought or homemade. And that’s it. That’s the whole salad. Super veggie-heavy, super fresh, and healthy. It makes a great dinner or like I said, a great side salad. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes. If you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, you definitely should subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our new episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.