Name: Vegetarian Italian Chopped Salad
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 10 ounces chopped romaine lettuce* (about 2 medium or 3 small heads, chopped); ½ medium head of radicchio*, finely chopped (about 2 cups); ½ medium red onion, chopped (about 1 cup); 2 ribs celery, chopped; 1 pint cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced; ⅓ cup stemmed and thinly sliced pickled pepperoncini peppers; ⅓ cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, rinsed and roughly chopped; 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas; 1 cup (4 ounces) ¼″ cubes of provolone cheese (optional); ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil; ⅓ cup red wine vinegar; 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard; 2 teaspoons dried oregano; 1 teaspoon honey; 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced; 10 twists freshly ground black pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt, more to taste; Pinch of red pepper flakes, for heat (optional)

Vegetarian Italian Chopped Salad

Truly the best Italian chopped salad recipe, with chopped fresh greens and veggies in a simple Italian vinaigrette. This salad is vegetarian and easily vegan. Recipe yields 6 to 8 side servings or 3 to 4 meal-sized servings (a lot). If you store the salad separately from the vinaigrette, it will keep well for up to 4 days.

20 min total 20 min prep 6 535 cal

Instructions

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1 In a large serving bowl, combine the chopped lettuce, radicchio, onion, celery, cherry tomatoes, peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, chickpeas and cheese (if using). Toss the ingredients together and set aside.
2 To prepare the dressing, combine all of the ingredients in a liquid measuring cup. Whisk until blended. Taste, and add more salt if the dressing doesn’t knock your socks off (I usually add one to two more pinches of salt).
3 If you’ll be serving all of the salad at once, go ahead and drizzle enough dressing in to lightly coat the salad and toss to combine. I prefer to store the salad and dressing separately so I can enjoy salad for a few days. Just whisk the dressing again before drizzling (if the olive oil solidifies a bit in the refrigerator, don’t worry, that’s normal—just let it warm up for about 5 minutes at room temperature or microwave for 10 to 20 seconds).