Help -
I need to make an easy salad for a group dinner/8 people.
I want all of the ingredients to be easily obtained and put together quickly at the party.
I’m thinking baby spinach based, maybe with craisins, maybe apple or raspberries, some kind of nuts, some kind of cheese and some kind of dressing kind of thing.
Dressing can be bottled or made at home ahead of time.
I would also consider other EASY salads based on lettuce you can buy cleaned/in a bag and other ingredients I can cut up ahead of time.
(Don’t want to have to deal with washing, etc. at the last minute in someone else’s kitchen).
I realize I can google and find lots of recipes, but I appreciate hearing from people who have actually made/eaten the salad.
Costco has an Avocado Ranch Chopped Salad Kit that comes with a mixture of romaine lettuce, kale, green and red cabbage, and carrots and includes toppings such as crunchy corn, corn flax chips, smoked white cheddar, and avocado ranch dressing. Buy and cut up some ripe avocados and cherry/grape tomatoes.
It’s wonderful!
TJ’s fig and balsamic dressing works great on baby spinach salad with sliced almonds, strawberries, red onions, and feta. Put your almonds, strawberries, feta, and onions into separate baggies and add to the spinach just before serving.
This is the Cosi signature salad, one of my favorites. It takes a little time to prep the ingredients, but then they just wait in their containers in the fridge until it’s time to toss all together. I put the dressing in a jar and give it a shake up before using. It would be best with Cosi flatbread, but pita bread is a good substitute.
It was one of my favorite lunches when we lived in the Chicago burbs; there was a Cosi in the old train station. I loved nibbling the bread samples while waiting for my salad. So I tracked down the copycat recipe.
P.S. I like this salad because I don’t like vegetables much, but do love fruit .
Bagged salad mix (spring mix or whatever - personally I don’t love all the greens to be spinach - the texture turns me off)
Easy vegetable, you chose: shredded carrot, cucumber, grape tomatoes (I like to cut in half), radish, diced cauliflower or broccoli, onion - whatever you have in the produce drawer!
1-2 cheeses - crumbled feta is a nice dump and use one.
Protein if you want it - crumbled bacon, leftover chicken or drained good quality canned chicken
A handful of bagged salad topping - usually has nuts, dried fruits, pumpkin seeds, etc. - Costco has a really good one with glazed pecans.
THEN, A REALLY GOOD BOTTLED DRESSING!!! Quality salad dressing makes all the difference!
I always highly recommend Garlic Expressions if you’re area carries it!
At anytime I can build a salad like this with different combo of ingredients because there is always some veggies/cheese/protein in the house I can use to dump on the packaged greens!
Editing to say: Homemade salad dressing of course is delicious too but it seemed the point was speed and convenience.
I make a salad with baby spring mix and basil. I add toasted (chopped) walnuts and crumbled blue cheese to the salad. I make my own dressing in the food processor with 2 parts canola oil, 1 part balsamic, fresh basil and salt and pepper. We eat this for dinner during the week with rotisserie chicken added to the salad. I have taken it many places both with and without chicken and it is always a hit.
I’ve sometimes made half the recipe and it’s enough for two entree size servings so I think the servings are accurate. There’s so much fruit that you could just add a few more greens if you want it to stretch a bit further.
Yum! That is a meatless variant of the “Olivier” salad. Again, the name sounds French-ish, but the dish is definitely not!
ETA: I make it with diced grilled chicken breast instead of cubed ham. Most people stare at it at first, take a small spoonful, and then mysteriously the serving bowl gets cleaned out.
I’m thinking the Cosi salad may be too much for this group. It’s on the sweet side. So, I’m going to buy a bunch of the ingredients mentioned here and just throw something together Saturday. I am making the Cosi salad for us sometime very soon.
I love simple salads - one of my favorites was mentioned above: greens, goat cheese, beets and walnuts.
Another favorite: arugula, sliced grape tomatoes, small mozzarella balls topped with Sweet Basil dressing ( Field and Farmer brand).
OP here. I walked with a friend yesterday, and she said the Cosi salad sounded wonderful and the other salad I was thinking of making sounded boring. Plus, I found ripe pears and Sherry vinegar. Looks like I’ll be trying the recipe @Marilyn posted.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I have tons of salad ingredients now, and I’ll be trying different combos, including dried cherries and raisins and different nuts. Plus, next time I’m in Costco I’m buying their salad topping mix. That sounds great.
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