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Hi hi! I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. I wanted to pop in here because I wanted to share with you this salad I made for lunch on Saturday when we had my parents over for an early Mother’s Day celebration!
Also, as a follow-up to this post, I’ll be popping in and out every now and then. I’m definitely not quitting the blog; I’m going to try to just not have a set schedule and the pressure to post. I do have several new recipe videos I shot in March that I’d love to share with you guys and I also just want to share recipes I love with stories behind them.
I guess you can say I’m going back to my roots and blogging for fun again. I hope you join me in this journey!
Like I said, I made this salad for Mother’s Day lunch on Saturday. I didn’t realize how much I would love this salad until I finished two giant platefuls.
It’s basic and quick and you can add as little or as much to it as you want. Isn’t that what a salad is all about?
I feel like salads have gotten such a bad rap. For many years, you ate a salad because you were “on a diet” or you would order a salad at a restaurant because you were “trying to be healthy.” Whatever happened to eating a salad because you just want some greens and vegetables?
And I also hate the argument that “a salad is not a meal.” Um, yes it is. If you build it correctly, it is. If it has a good amount of protein, carbs, and fats, it can be considered a meal. It can be filling and it is a healthier choice but by no means is it something you eat only when you’re on a diet.
I just loved all the flavors of this salad. I don’t like raw tomatoes so instead of putting myself through that and/or picking them out, I opted to roast red bell peppers.
You can easily buy them in the jar or throw them on the grill. We threw them on the grill on Saturday because we were already grilling pork chops but for regular lunches, I just sliced up the bell peppers into big wedges and threw them in the oven with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.
There is nothing better than fresh, crisp cucumbers paired with roasted red peppers, red onions (I LOVE raw onions in my salads), and kalamata olives. You could probably throw feta cheese in and then it’d basically be like a Mediterranean salad but I didn’t have any on hand so I just quickly seared some chicken tenderloins (with my favorite onion salt from Trader Joe’s) and chopped them up to throw in the salad.
My favorite dressing to use on this salad is Bolthouse Farms’ honey mustard. If you’ve never tried Bolthouse Farms yogurt dressing; you are missing out. They have the best macros and you can use more of the dressing (if you’re a heavy dresser) without all the fat.
Quick Basic Chopped Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups (80 g) loosely packed spring mix
- 1 cup (20 g) loosely packed baby arugula
- 2 seedless mini cucumbers, sliced into rounds
- 1 large red bell pepper, roasted (or you can use jarred roasted red peppers)
- Red onion slices
- Kalamata olives
- 4 ounces (113 g) cubed chicken
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Add all ingredients into a large bowl. Then use the chopper and run it through all ingredients until chopped to desired consistency. See notes below.2 cups (80 g) loosely packed spring mix, 1 cup (20 g) loosely packed baby arugula, 2 seedless mini cucumbers, 1 large red bell pepper, Red onion slices, Kalamata olives, 4 ounces (113 g) cubed chicken, Salt and pepper
- Alternatively, you can chop everything finely on a cutting board then place in to a large bowl to dress. Or you can make this not a chopped salad but just a regular salad with toppings.
- Drizzle your favorite dressing on top and mix.
Notes
Nutrition
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Food & Busy Lifestyles? If you are too busy to make a real fresh salad for your life, then you do not value life.
Cooking is not fresh. Meat is not fresh. Following my teachers’ instructions, eating real (raw) salad, I became the healthiest person I’ve ever had the opportunity to test.