Everyday Salad

My favorite Everyday Salad recipe is quick and easy to make, tossed with a simple and delicious lemony dressing, and so versatile that it goes with everything!

Friends, do you have a go-to side salad recipe that you love.? This simple green salad, which we lovingly refer to as our “everyday” salad here at the house, is mine. It’s the no-frills, easy-breezy, fresh-and-flavorful, always-a-winner green salad recipe. We make most often here in our house behind the scenes. And even after eating it hundreds of times, it’s one of those staple recipes that we somehow never get tired of.

It’s incredibly quick and easy to make with a bag of greens (we most often use spring greens), a veggie or two (we usually add red onion, plus cucumber, bell pepper, carrot. Whatever’s in the crisper drawer), and a sprinkling of nuts or seeds for protein and crunch (we’re partial to either sunflower seeds or pepitas), and my go-to “everyday” salad dressing (which is quite easy to make).

The best part is that this tossed salad always tastes incredibly light, fresh, and tasty and can be prepared in less than ten minutes. It also happens to be naturally vegan and gluten-free, and it works amazingly well with almost any meal!

Naturally, you may alter this recipe to your heart’s content by adding any greens, vegetables, nuts, or even dressing ingredients you have on hand. Additionally, if you want to turn this salad into a meal, it tastes great with croutons and an additional protein, such as chicken or shrimp.

In any case, I hope you’ll try this salad recipe if you’re interested in including more salads in your weekly lunch and dinner rotations. It is unquestionably a family favorite!

Ingredients for an Ordinary Side Salad:

As previously said, the fundamental components of this salad are highly adaptable. So go ahead and use anything you have on hand or what you love the most! All you’ll need is some kind of

Fresh greens: For this salad, I usually use baby arugula, spring greens, or mixed greens. However, any green you enjoy eating would do.
English cucumber: We always have a few on hand because they are simple to handle (no need to fuss with removing the seeds!), store well in the crisper drawer for a long time (yeah! ), and go wonderfully with salads. Having said that, feel free to use any variety of cucumber for this salad; you can also find other fresh vegetable ideas below.

Red onion: If you’ve read this blog for even a short while, you know that I always have to have some fresh red onions, thinly sliced, on my salads. However, you are welcome to omit them if you are not as fond of them as I am (or use sliced shallots for a milder option). Alternatively, you can gently rinse the sliced onions in water before adding them to the salad to lessen the intensity of the red onion flavor.
Nuts and seeds: To add even more crunch and nutrition to this tossed salad, feel free to add any nuts or seeds you choose! In our household, we have a weakness for toasted pine nuts, salted pepitas, or sunflower seeds. However, pistachios, pecans, walnuts, and toasted almonds

or any other preferred nuts or seeds would also be delectable choices.
Daily attire: Take a look below!v

Ingredients for a Daily Salad Dressing:

Over the past several years, so many of you have made and enjoyed my “everyday” salad dressing recipe that I’ve subsequently written a whole recipe post dedicated to it if you’d want to read more. ♥ However, it’s just a fantastic all-purpose salad dressing that takes only a few minutes to prepare and pairs well with almost anything! You’ll need the following components for the salad dressing to prepare it:

Olive oil: As usual, for salad dressing recipes, high-quality extra virgin olive oil is advised because its flavor will be amplified.
Vinegar or lemon juice: For this dressing, we often use freshly squeezed lemon juice. However, you can use red wine vinegar in their place if you don’t have any fresh lemons on hand.
Dijon mustard: This only rounds out the flavors by adding a hint of faint flavor. (Don’t worry, there won’t be an overly mustard flavor!)

Garlic: You can use garlic powder in this dressing if you’d rather, but I prefer to use chopped or pressed fresh garlic.
Salt and black pepper: Lastly, to season the dressing, we’ll use fine sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

We find that the tiny amount of salad dressing made in the recipe below is ideal for the servings indicated in the recipes. However, some readers prefer to make twice as much dressing, or if you would like to have some prepared salad dressing ready to go in the fridge for later in the week, you can make a much larger batch (as indicated in the top photo).

Elective Salad Ingredients:

You can experiment with a plethora of other additions and variants to this salad in addition to the basic elements listed above. Thus, feel free to alter and personalize this salad recipe! For instance, you may

Include a protein: Tofu, scallops, salmon (or other types of fish), steak, pig, shrimp, or cooked chicken would all taste great added to this salad.
Add cheese: This salad would also taste great with a variety of soft crumbled cheeses (like goat cheese, feta, or gorgonzola), soft mozzarellas (like burrata, or tiny mozzarella), and hard cheeses (such as shaved Parmesan, Pecorino, or Manchego).

Add more fresh vegetables: Feel free to add any other favorite fresh vegetables, including sliced bell peppers, carrots, radishes, celery, maize, etc., in addition to (or instead of) the English cucumbers.
Jarred vegetables or olives: You are welcome to include whatever jarred vegetables you enjoy, such as marinated artichokes, roasted red peppers, pepperoncini peppers, or olives.
Include tomatoes: This salad would also be excellent with fresh or sun-dried tomatoes.

Put beans: Of course, you are also welcome to include any additional beans.

legumes, red kidney beans, white beans, and chickpeas are good sources of protein.