How to Make the Best Italian Salad Ever!

Try this classic Italian food recipe, which is made even better with a homemade Italian dressing recipe! This easy recipe features crisp lettuce and all your favorite Italian flavors. Learn how to make this stunning salad at home for a beautiful and delicious meal or starter to an incredible Italian feast!

🥗 Other Delicious Italian Salad and Soup Recipe Videos:
👉 Classic Caesar Salad: https://youtu.be/QiIOakDwUOo
👉 Authentic Minestrone: https://youtu.be/24mPTcVUsKw

Italian Chopped Salad with Homemade Vinaigrette Ingredients:
Do Ahead:
½ cup Italian Dressing (Vinaigrette): click link for recipe:
https://howtofeedaloon.com/homemade-italian-dressing/

For the Salad:
½ medium head iceberg lettuce
1 heart of Romaine
½ cup Genoa salami, chopped
½ cup Mortadella, cut into strips
½ cup smoked ham, cut into small cubes
½ cup Mozzarella balls, halved
¼ cup chopped red onion
½ cup cucumber, seeded and cubed
½ cup pepperoncini peppers
½ cup pitted black olives, halved
½ cup pitted green olives, halved
½ cup Kalamata olives, halved
½ cup radishes, thinly sliced and chopped
¾ cup cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and pepper
Pinch of dried oregano

Full Recipe:
https://howtofeedaloon.com/italian-chopped-salad-with-homemade-vinaigrette/

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Today we’re doing one of the most beloved salads in the world. Made even better with some homemade Italian dressing. Chilled crisp lettuce tossed with all your favorite Italian flavors. Oh, you can serve it as an entree or the beginning of an amazing Italian feast. And this salad is as beautiful as it is delicious. Gorgeous. And it is delicious. And it should be because it I say it’s got everything but the Look at all of that. I mean, all of that. If you whatever it is, it is awesome. It is one of It’s a salad. Put a little quotes around it. It It does have lettuce in there. Speaking of lettuce, let’s talk about that real quick before we get started. So, we’re using I’m doing a romaine lettuce. This is a heart romaine. Um, and then this is iceberg lettuce. This is a half of a head of iceberg lettuce. And you want this to be nice and chilled. And you want to clean it. So, we just I just cho cut in half. I rinsed it under some water. And then put them, you know, cut side down on paper towels. do the same thing with your Roma. Um, and then chill it. Put it in the refrigerator and get it nice and chilled. You can do this hours and hours in advance like we did. Okay, I’m going to start. I have got so much stuff here which we will talk about here in just a moment. I know it’s like we had to bring in another room just to put everything, but I’m going to start just chopping this up. I’m going to chop it kind of nice and fine. And you’re going to make dressing. I’m going to make the Italian dressing. Y’all, I love this Italian dressing. It is a game changer. Super easy. It really is. Don’t ever buy the bottled stuff again. Never. Never. Never. Never ever. I don’t think we do anyway. No. Um, so I’ve got two cloves of garlic. I’m going to get that in there. Get those that have been minced. Yes. Minced cloves of garlic. And you’re going to do the emulsification in a jar. It’s so easy. Makes it so much easier. Then I’ve got two tablespoons of Parmesan cheese. You got to add that cheese in there. I’m just giving my lettuce here a nice rough chop. There you go. I like to chop it kind of finely, but if you like it big and leafy, you can do that, too. I like a good I like a chopped salad chopped. I want it chopped. Uh, and then I’ve got some chopped parsley. There you go. I’ve got a tablespoon of this. And that’s Italian parsley. Italian parsley. Ooh, we’re fancy. We’re Well, we’re going Italian. I know. I’m being silly. Uh, and then I’ve got some red wine vinegar. I’ve got a uh That’s white wine vinegar. White. Sorry. Yeah, that’s why that would be why it’s not red. This is This is a third a cup. Okay. All right. That gives you that little tang that you want. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then I’ve got some Italian seasoning here. I’ve got oregano, a some basil, and some onion powder. And this is all a teaspoon each. Yep. So, I’m going to get those in there. Oh, y’all. That’s starting to smell really good. I know. I’m telling you this. Okay. Then I want a tablespoon of honey. And I am just going to eyeball that. That’s the way to do it. Mhm. It gives a little hint of sweetness, which is so heavenly. Then I have some juice of a lemon. How’s the chopping coming? It’s coming lovely. See, I’ve got it right over here. Wow. Okay. I know. Oh, throw away. Oh, that’s a juicy lemon. It is a juicy lemon. Don’t overdo that. Yeah. You depending on how juicy your lemon is, you typically want about uh I’d say a healthy tablespoon of lemon juice. Oh, that’s Oh, I love that. I know. But that’s again that tartness that is acid. While you’re doing that, I’m going to get I’m going to get our cucumber ready. Perfect. And now I’ve got a 2/3 of a cup of EDO extra virgin olive oil. I did this kind of in like a cute little fashion of peeling it. You can peel it all. You don’t have to peel it. I just think it’s kind of pretty. I’m going to cut while you’re doing I’m going to cut this in half and then I’m going to cut the halves in half. Got it. And now I’m just going to finish it off with some salt. A big pinch of salt. And then a big pinch of pepper. And I’m going to shake, shake, shake, shake, rattle, and roll. This is Taylor. Shake, shake, shake. And now I’m just going to get these. I like to get the remove these seeds. I just got a spoon that I’m doing that with. Yep. Go ahead. Shake it out. Shake her out, baby. Wow, y’all. Look at that. That is gorgeous. That is flavor. That is I’m telling you, it is the real deal. And you’ll just It’s You see how easy it is? And once you have it on this salad or we make it with a pasta salad, it is so good. So good. I’m going to stick this in the fridge while you’re still It needs Now it needs a little time just to get those flavors to melt. But it’s still even good right now. And this So I’ve cut that in half. And then you see I took out the seeds. And now we’re just going to just put these into little small little bites. I’m going to clean up a little bit. Okay. And so anyway, I’m going to finish this up. We’re going to let that chill and then we’re going to go over I hope you’re pull up a chair, relax, cuz we’re going to go over all of these ingredients. Okay, it’s assembly time. We have got an assembly line up set up like all of this wonderfulness. And the great thing about this kind of a salad is, you know, obviously you can adapt it to whatever you’ve got on hand. Um, whatever you you like, what your guests like. We had a dinner party the other night where we had some guests over and we had someone who couldn’t eat cheese or meat. Um, so we were able to make hers separately and so you can adapt. It’s very easy. So that being said, let’s go to town. We’re just going to start um adding things. So we’ve got three different types of olives. These are just good green potted or potted pe um pitted pitted. I can’t speak. And I’ve got some black olives here that are also black olives. Going to make a little cute little sign. We love the addition of Italian cured meats. So this is a salami. this in that we cut into bite-sized pieces. I’ve got some chickpeas or garbanzo beans. Garbanzo beans. Just drained garbanzo beans. Add a nice little crunch and texture. These are colamada olives. These are about like a third of a cup. 3/4 of a cup. Half a cup. I’m going to say you’re going to probably want to do about a half a cup. Um this is chopped red onion. You’re going to probably want to do well. Again, this just depends on what you like. I’m going to do probably about a/4 cup of the red onion. I’ve got some smoked ham here. Yum. Yum. Um, that’s been that we’ve cut up. This is that cucumber that you were seeing. I don’t think I’m going to put all of that in there. I I ended up using half of that cucumber. I’m making some space for the other stuff. I know. You have to make space. This is uh mortadella, which is basically Italian baloney. I love mortadella. I do too. You can find it in the deli section of most supermarkets. Okay. Now, I’ve got some radish. I love me some peppery radish. I do too. I do. So good. And then, of course, you got to have some cheese. You got to add. So, these are these are uh little balls of mozzarella that I’ve cut into halves. You need tomatoes. We’ve got some uh cherry tomatoes that we colorful cherry tomatoes. Yeah. Look at that, people. That is amazing. That is beautiful. And then just to top it all off, we want to throw in a couple of these the pepperos. Pepperinos. It’s always nice to have a little heat in there. Yeah. And I mean, they have mild ones or at least medium ones. And And if you don’t like them, pick them out. That’s right. I I love them so much. Okay, here we go. Look at that, y’all. That is gorgeous. It is. It’s so absolutely gorgeous. Now, I’m going to add just another pinch of kosher salt. We’ll add pepper at the end. And then I’m going to add a healthy pinch of dried oregano. Isn’t that beautiful? I love the oregano. Okay. Am I doing the the honors? Go ahead. Shake it. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake it up. Okay. So, now you’re definitely going to want to always do that before you serve this cuz it’ll it will separate a little bit on you. and go easy on it. It’s so easy to overdress because once you’ve overdressed, you can’t go back. No. So, we’re going to say anywhere from a quarter cup to a half a cup, but I am eyeballing it. Go all over that thing. Oh, yes. That’s probably I’ve already probably overdressed it. No, you probably haven’t. I mean, there’s a lot there’s a lot of lettuce on. There’s a lot to go around. That’s true. We’ll save that over here just All right. So, now toss that. Oh, wait. Hold. Well, do you want to do it on your individual? Maybe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let’s do All right. All right. And then it just all comes together. You notice how I kept this uh cutting board here for a catch all. Yes, catch all. That’s a good idea. You know me. Um we love going to Italian restaurants and getting a salad like this. I think everyone does. It’s such a favorite thing to do. Oh, years ago we would in in New York, we would uh go to this place called Carmines, which I’m sure all of you a lot of tourists love to go there now. Um, but it was it was the best and they would serve everything family style and they had a great chopped salad. They did. We would get that or we would get the chicken masala. We would a lot but they would also get their their Caesar salad. That was that’s a big old clump of mortell. I know. Spread that mortadella out. I’m spreading the love and just keep doing it until you get everything really well distributed. That’s nicely dressed. You don’t want it dripping, but you want it nicely coated. So, Oh, Chris. Oh, boy. I’m so excited. Oh, all right. You have to give me all of the lo. I’m going to There we go. Okay. Now, this is where I’m going to probably make a mess. That’s okay. There you go. There. You did it. Yay. All right. Let’s have some more. More, please. More. More, please. Oh, wow. That’s beautiful. Oh, I see some mortadella here that I want to grab. Yeah. Mortadella is has become one of our favorite things to just to eat. It’s I’ve always loved bologna. Um, which I guess that’s always Yeah, that’s Italian baloney full of it. Um, anyway. Okay, that is great. If you wanted to do a little shaved parmesan on there, you could. Um, you want to do the pepper? You can do that. Hold on. Let me just make it make a pretty picture here. There you go. You go here. Okay. So, now we’re going to do a little There you go. Perfect. Freshly ground pepper makes everything better for the most part. Oh, I love that. And this is, like I said, it’s so chalk full of ingredients. You could you could have it as an entree, but it is the perfect start of an Italian feast. This is This is one of my favorite salads. This and a cob. Oh, and Caesar. Yep. Okay. And I like the fine chop on the lettuce. I just think it’s It makes it easier to grab so many ingredients. Okay. I’m going to I got You can’t get everything. You can’t You’re ready? Yes, I’m ready. [Music] That dressing, that dressing, it’s just so vibrant. The the lettuce is crisp. Gosh. Oh, there’s those cucumbers. This salad is really Oh, hold on. And it’s not heavy. That’s why it’s so great for serving before you’re having like serving of your entre. It just it really starts things off wonderfully. M. Let me get some of that salami. [Music] I love that. Open salami. What? Open. Open my open sesame. Well, for today it’s salami. What? This salad is 500,000% Luna. Wow. That’s pretty good. It’s not meat. I know. I know you guys. Although the meat in here is delicious. It is. It is. All right. We hope you guys are having a great time. And um we hope you make a salad. This salad, it’s so great. And you don’t have to do it obviously as giant as this one. Oh yeah, you do. I think you should. And when you do, take a picture of it and send it to us. Bye. We love you guys. We love you guys. Yay.