One of my favorite dinners is what we just call “Big Salad Night”. Starts with a base of some type of greens and then things get piled on and before you know it, your have an enormous salad hiding the greens!
My general method of toppings includes:
greens
chopped veggies
1-2 types of cheese
maybe a protein like egg or chicken or rare, bacon
marinated item like olives or pickled peppers
nuts or seeds
As I was building my salad tonight, I realized I often pull out additional ammunition - care to share your fav salad toppings??? Maybe some unique ones?
My add ins to the above tonight:
nectarine (a nice firm one!)
One butt end of fresh bread toasted, topped with olive oil and then torn over salad
And of course DRESSING. That’s a whole other arena!!!
I buy this prepared chick pea salad at the market. I’ll often add hard boiled egg. I make bread crumbs and add that. Left over tuna salad, a little is added. My SO likes scallions vs onions, so a scallion goes on top.
That is the fun of salads. I use up leftovers but make good proteins to add to the lettuce. Often, the salad is my complete meal.
I make a salad almost every day for lunch. Mix of greens, veggies from the crisper, leftover protein, and a few pantry items. In addition to the standard salad veggies, I like leftover roasted sweet potatoes, sliced Brussels, beets. I like to add sunflower seeds or pepitas for crunch.
I was excited to see this thread! Big salads are one of our favorite dinners with all of our chicks actually at their schools now
Especially in the winter, I like something warm in the salad, so some of the things that I add are:
Roasted vegetables- baby potatoes (sliced in half) or those nice packages of ready chopped sweet potato or butternut squash roast up in the amount of time it takes to get the rest of the salad together; as do green beans or asparagus in a skillet
Warm grains- especially farro
LOTS of herbs- like the whole bunch of Italian parsley, and/or mint or cilantro.
Sliced kohlrabi, chunks of cooked squash, fruit (my favorites are orange, blueberry, mango), candied nuts (I like pecans cooked in a little real maple syrup and butter), goat cheese or feta, pumpkin seeds, all the seeds that end up as leftovers in from the everything bagels, all those weird radishy things our CSA insists on giving us…
I have either a salad or soup almost everyday. It’s what I have to break my fast as a late lunch. Sometimes it’s greens with leftover roasted veggies, egg, chicken, dates or dried cranberries, sometimes a sort of antipasti salami, prosciutto, cheese, artichoke, dates, almonds over greens, mexi salad greens, avocado, tomato, corn, beans and if we have leftover taco meat or some grilled chicken or even steak. Other days something as easy as greens with some chicken or tuna salad on top. I tend to want soup when it’s cold and get my veggies that way and salad more so in warmer months but the roasted veggies and warm protein works some days. I also will put quinoa on if I have it. Salad is a way to use leftovers and keep fridge clean for me.
We have a few standby dinner salads. One is a copycat of a salad from Panera that has mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, strawberries, blueberries, candied pecans and grilled chicken over greens and topped with a poppyseed dressing. I also do a Mexican salad with black beans, corn, avocado, shredded cheddar, those tortilla strips in a bag, and I make a dressing out of salsa and ranch dressing. DH loves a Buffalo chicken salad with Buffalo chicken sausage, greens, celery, crumbled Gorgonzola and blue cheese dressing. DD’s favorite is sliced pears, dried cranberries, goat cheese, chicken and candied pecans over spinach with a fig and balsamic dressing from Stonewall Kitchen.
I also like dried fruit especially dried cherries or apricots.
We also buy some of the bagged “flavored” salad along with plain greens (usually kale - I love kale)- they are handy and we just add more ingredient toppings. I do think the amount of dressing never covers the amount of salad in those bags!
I admit to wanting a fair amount of dressing on my salad. So I try to lean towards the vinegar based dressings as opposed to a creamy dressing. I also often use more than one dressing - like a few dribbles of a good creamy ranch or greek - and then more generous vinegar/oil based like Garlic Expressions.
I make a salad with kale, red cabbage, butternut squash, dates, bacon, pumpkin seeds, and sometimes feta cheese. I use my standard vinaigrette on it. Because it’s made with kale, it keeps for a few days.
Another one I like has kale, quinoa, Parmesan as the base, again with homemade dressing. I sometimes put chicken, edamame, and/or croutons in it.
