Customize the salad by choosing your favorite add-ins, and season it with our homemade Italian dressing to add a bright and tangy taste. Let’s see how! Our Italian salad is a versatile recipe you can make all year round to serve as a starter or as a side dish with most mains. We make this recipe at least twice a week to boost the intake of fresh raw greens in our diet, and also make it because it tastes delicious, and we often eat it for lunch with a thick slice of sourdough bread.Use our Italian salad recipe as a guideline, customizing it based on your tastes and preferences. Here we will show you how to make a big one, with plenty of add-ins. Of course, you don’t have to use all the ingredients, although you can if you want to make the best biggest Italian salad ever.To season it, you can use a simple Italian vinaigrette made with olive oil, salt, and vinegar, or you can make our delicious homemade Italian dressing. Either way, we are sure you are going to love this recipe. It’s tasty, crunchy, fresh, and nutritious!
Ingredients
Instructions
Serving suggestions
Variations
Make Ahead Tip
To make this recipe ahead of time, you can mix all the ingredients in a large bowl without adding the dressing. This way, the salad will stay crunchy for about 12 hours in the fridge. Then, before serving it, add the Italian dressing and eat it right away. The dressing contains vinegar and lemon juices, which makes the salad leaves soft and less crunchy. That’s why you want to add it at the last moment.
Radicchio
Radicchio is the purple-colored lettuce with a slightly bitter taste. It’s a common ingredient in Italian salads; however, if you are not a fan of bitter flavors, you can keep it out.
Arugula
Arugula is another popular green you can add to your Italian salad. If you don’t like its slightly bitter and spicy taste, you can replace it with Lamb’s lettuce, purslane, or watercress.
Celery
Celery adds a fresh, crunchy, slightly sweet flavor to the salad, and it’s a staple in most Italian salad recipes.
Carrot
We grate the carrot with the large holes of a box grater. It adds crunch, color, and a sweet taste.
Red Onion
Thinly sliced red onion adds a tangy and mildly sweet flavor that lifts all the other ingredients. For a milder flavor, use green or spring onions.
Tomatoes
Pick your favorite tomatoes, as long as they are not overripe. We like to use Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, vine tomatoes, and when we can find it, fresh San Marzano tomatoes.
Add-ins
Pick from homemade croutons, black olives, shaved parmesan cheese (for non-vegans), pepperoncini, sundried tomatoes, and mixed seeds or pumpkin seeds.
Homemade Italian Dressing
We make our Italian salad dressing with extra virgin olive oil, white wine or red wine vinegar, lemon juice, dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder (or one clove of crushed garlic), pepper, salt, and optionally maple syrup. Close the lid tight and shake the jar to emulsify the ingredients.
Mix the salad
Add chopped Romaine lettuce, chopped radicchio, arugula, halved cherry tomatoes, finely sliced red onion, grated carrots, and chopped celery to a large bowl. Next, add your add-ins. We use black olives, peperoncini (jalapeños work too), homemade croutons, pumpkin seeds, and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Drizzle with the dressing, toss, and you are ready to serve it. Alternatively, you can serve it as a side dish with many of our plant-based dinners. For example, try serving it with protein, pasta, or risotto:
Plant-based protein: for example vegan egg salad made with tofu cubes, tofu with mushrooms, or charred marinated tofu.Pasta: such as vegan meatballs on spaghetti in marinara sauce, the easiest pasta aglio e olio or our creamy mushroom pasta.Risotto: it’s delicious as a side with tomato risotto, easy shredded zucchini risotto, or asparagus risotto.
Want more dinner ideas? Check out our best 65 Italian vegan recipes with plenty of pasta, pizza, and protein-rich dinners. Also, instead of the Italian dressing, season this simpler salad with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, and a pinch of salt. This is what Italians actually eat as a side salad.
Italian salad with Shaved Parmesan
For omnivores and flexitarians, adding shaved parmesan cheese is a great way to make this Italian chopped salad even tastier. To shave a block of parmesan, we recommend using a vegetable peeler. Then, add the shaved cheese on top just before serving the salad. However, we recommend using plant-based protein sources instead to keep the salad light and healthy. Try our pan-fried tofu cubes, air fryer tofu, roasted chickpeas, air-fried chickpeas, or white beans.
Storage
This Italian salad is best eaten soon after you add the dressing. Leftovers keep in the fridge for about 24 hours, but the salad will lose its crunch after about 2 hours. Don’t add the dressing to store the salad for longer.
More Salad Recipes
For many more side dish ideas, check out our sides category page.
Rice salad inspired by Italian cooking traditionEggplant salad with tender cubes of eggplantChickpea salad with fresh veggiesCouscous with aromatic pan-fried vegetablesQuinoa chickpea salad with healthy plant-based proteinFennel and orange salad with pomegranate seedsRaw zucchini salad with homemade marinade and pine nuts
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