A garden salad is a staple for any home chef! Fresh crisp vegetables meet an easy mixture of a lettuce and spinach salad base. We use a simple variety of mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and green onions but we’ll give you a full list of vegetables you could add, along with our favorite dressing recipes.
What goes in a garden salad?
A garden salad is mixture of leafy greens, vegetables, and sometimes at restaurants includes croutons and shredded cheese. You can really add whatever you want to a garden salad, it’s really up to you.
Here’s a list of vegetables you could use in a garden salad (the ones we used are in bold):
- Lettuce base
- We used romaine and spinach but iceberg is traditional.
- Green onion
- Tomatoes
- Red Bell pepper
- Cucumber
- Mushrooms
- Red onion
- Shredded carrots
- Radish
- Green/Orange/Yellow Bell Pepper
- Jicama
- Corn
- Green Beans
- Avocado
- Broccoli
The key to a perfect garden salad is freshly washed, crisp, vegetables.
A garden salad is only as good as the vegetables you use! Being in Southern California, we’re super lucky to have loads of fresh vegetables year round here. For the best quality produce, I try to buy my vegetables at local farmers markets. If I just can’t get there, Sprouts is my next favorite, then Whole Foods, followed by Costco.
Be sure to wash your veggies! The FDA has some really clear guidelines on best practices I find very useful. Surprisingly enough they do not recommend any vegetable wash, just running water.
The Best Tools for Chopping Salad & Vegetables
A good knife and a cutting board does the trick. If you want to see a good tutorial, this one from Epicurious will give you a good visual for most vegetables.
Here’s a few of our favorite vegetable chopping products:
- Vegetable Chopper
- I absolutely love this thing. I find it most handy for chopped salads but it works great for chopping vegetables for soup, too.
- Color Coded Cutting Boards
- These work great to prevent cross contamination between fruits, meats, seafood, vegetables, and citrus.
- Bamboo Cutting Board
- This is my go to cutting board. I only use it for fruits and vegetables as bamboo is porous (I always use a separate plastic cutting board for meat).
- Herb Scissors
- These scissors make cutting green onions and chives a breeze! They work great for any long leafy herb though.
Garden Salad Dressing Recipes
Garden salads can be dressed in any dressing of your choice. Toss or drizzle on top- chef’s choice. Here’s a few of our favorites!
- Green Goddess Dressing
- This recipe is made with cottage cheese for a healthy, protein packed base.
- Mediterranean Dressing
- Honey Sesame Dressing
- Skinny Caesar Dressing
- Homemade Dry Ranch
We hope you like this garden salad as much as we do!
Kathi and Rachel
What do you think about this recipe? Have questions? Comment below! Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and connect with us on Instagram and tag your @Laughingspatula recipes with #laughingspatula,while you’re at it…We love to see your pics!
Garden Salad Recipe
Equipment
- 1 vegetable knife
- 1 cutting board
Ingredients
- 3 cups chopped lettuce (iceberg or romaine)
- 2 cups chopped spinach
- 1/2 cup chopped cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup chopped cucumbers
- 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped green onions
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine chopped lettuce and spinach. Toss.
- Layer remaining vegetables as desired. Toss to combine.
- Serve with dressing of choice. Enjoy!
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