Keep your meals light and delicious with a Chopped Salad that is full of your favorite, fresh veggies and can be tossed with any dressing!
Why We Love Vegetable Chopped Salad
- Chopped Salad is an easy-to-assemble dish that pairs perfectly with any meal.
- This super light salad is filling with all kinds of fresh vegetables for a yummy side dish, but can also be turned into a lunch or dinner with the addition of your favorite protein.
- You can toss this Chopped Salad with your favorite salad dressing, whatever that may be! Try out a few different dressings to see if you have a favorite.
- Chopped Salad is also great for potlucks and BBQs! You can make a large salad that compliments a variety of grilled food and is so refreshing!
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make Chop Salad
LETTUCE: Iceberg lettuce is the preferred lettuce for this salad, because of its cooling crunch, but you can substitute your favorite lettuce instead, such as a green leaf or Romaine.
VEGETABLES: For a variety of textures and flavors that make this salad so delicious, you will need tomatoes, a red and yellow bell pepper, an English cucumber, celery, carrots, green onion, broccoli, and cauliflower.
SALAD DRESSING: Pick up your preferred salad dressing for this salad, or a variety of dressings if you are feeding a crowd – such as Ranch, Homemade Italian, Honey Mustard, or Blue Cheese.
How to Make Chopped Salad
Jump to RecipeSTEP 1 Chop, shred, or dice each of the vegetables per the recipe directions.
STEP 2 Add the vegetables and the lettuce to a large bowl and toss until everything is mixed well.
STEP 3 Pour the salad dressing over the salad and then toss to coat the veggies, or let everyone dress their individual portion.
Tips & Tricks
- If you are making this salad ahead of time do not toss everything together. Keep each vegetable separate until you are ready to serve and then mix it. Sometimes veggies will leach their color onto the other veggies or the lettuce will become too wilted if prepared too far in advance.
- The vegetables listed can be a starting point- add your other favorite veggies or substitute some veggies for ones you like, such as artichoke hearts, radishes, or zucchini.
- Add your favorite protein to this Chopped Salad to make it a full meal! Grilled chicken, diced ham, eggs, grilled tofu, shrimp, or crumbled bacon would be amazing additions.
- Chopped Salad will last for two days in an airtight container in the refrigerator but can not be frozen.
Chopped Salad Recipe FAQ
What does chopped salad mean?
Chopped Salad gets its name from how the salad is prepared- with chopped ingredients roughly all the same size or shape. The chopped ingredients are either tossed together or kept grouped, for a pleasing presentation. Also, premade chopped salads can be quite expensive and you are stuck with the veggies it comes with, so making your own salad is not only cheaper but also more delicious when you get to pick the vegetables that go into the salad!
How do you chop lettuce for a salad?
When chopping lettuce for a salad, the easiest way to do it is to remove any outer layers that are wilted or discolored. Some people like to smack the bottom of the iceberg lettuce core on the counter roughly to loosen the core, to then pull it out. Others like to simply trim the core and leave it in, so the choice is yours. Cut the head of lettuce in half, lay the flat half against the cutting board, and slice rows around an inch wide in the lettuce. Turn the lettuce and again, cut 1-inch rows. You now have chopped lettuce that is ready to go into the bowl.
Want to make your life even easier when it comes to cutting lettuce? Check out the magic that is the salad cutter bowl! This nifty contraption holds the lettuce or vegetable and the cover has cutouts for you to slice through, to perfectly chop whatever you want- looks like it would make easy work of both the veggies and the lettuce for this chopped salad!
Other Recipes You May like
- BLT Salad
- 7 Layer Salad Recipe
- Chicken Cobb Salad Recipe
- Pomegranate and Pear Salad
- 25 Salad Dressing Recipes
Chopped Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 head iceberg lettuce shredded
- ½ cup yellow bell pepper finely chopped
- ½ cup red bell pepper finely chopped
- ½ cup English cucumber finely chopped
- ½ cup tomatoes finely chopped
- ½ cup broccoli florets finely chopped
- ½ cup cauliflower florets finely chopped
- ½ cup celery finely chopped
- ½ cup green onions thinly sliced
- 1 medium carrot peeled & shredded
- Salad dressing for serving
Instructions
- Prep all the veggies and then add them to a large bowl. Toss to combine.
- Portion onto plates and drizzle with your favorite salad dressing. Serve immediately.
Notes
- Nutritional information does not include dressing.
- Store leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
- If you are prepping this salad for a party or for a make-ahead meal, do not toss all the ingredients together until you are ready to serve. Keep all the cut-up veggies separate in the fridge. The color from the veggies tends to bleed and then lettuce looks brown or off-color.
Nutrition
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.
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