So my motto for dinner is this — it needs to be easy, fast, healthy, and above all, delicious.  Because I often get home after 8pm, I opt to make salads most nights for dinner.  It’s a super easy way to have a filling meal chock full of veggies — and it’s on the table in 15-30 minutes (depending on the salad).

This week I’ll be posting a few different salad recipes that I’m making.  They all have basically the same base, I just add a few different ingredients to make each one unique.

The first one is an Italian-inspired chopped salad.  While not authentic, it’s got the same flavors as the sort of antipasti-type salad you’d get in a pizza joint, without all the added calories.  Not to mention it’s on the table in 15 minutes or less.

Here it is:

The salad consists of chopped: romaine, 1/2 an English cucumber, 1/4 of a red onion, 1 bell pepper, a big handful of grape tomatoes, a small handful of green olives, a can of cannelini beans, some chopped turkey deli meat, a bit of grated cheddar, and some homemade croutons.

This salad would be great with just about whatever veggies you have on hand.  I pretty much always have bell pepper, red onion, cucumber, and tomatoes, so that’s what I used.  You can improvise on what type (if any) meat you use in here.  I use salami or pepperoni if I have it on hand.  Prociutto would also work well.  Red kidney beans or garbanzo beans would be good if you don’t have cannelinis (I use garbanzos in this pretty often because they’re almost always in my pantry).  I like this salad with pepper jack cheese, but use what you have to make things easy on yourself.  Mozzarella or provolone would also work well.

The dressing is just a basic red wine vinaigrette:

Equal parts red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, plus salt and pepper.  I added a pinch of dried oregano, basil, and thyme into mine just to dress it up a bit.

That’s it!  Aside from a bit of chopping and those croutons, (which you all already know how to make) it really couldn’t be simpler right?

Ok, off to bed.  I’ve got another salad to share tomorrow (if I have time!  Arg…)

Night!