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 just about everything!
Friends! Do you have a go-to side salad recipe in your repertoire that you absolutely love? This simple green salad — which we fondly call our “everyday” salad here in our house — is mine. ♡
It’s the no-frills, easy-breezy, fresh-and-flavorful, always-a-winner green salad recipe that we make most often here in our house behind the scenes. And even after eating it literally hundreds of times, it’s one of those staple recipes that we somehow never grow 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, or whatever’s in the crisper drawer), a sprinkling of nuts/seeds for protein and crunch (we’re partial to pepitas or sunflower seeds), and my favorite “everyday” salad dressing (that’s super-simple to whip up). Best of all, this tossed salad comes together in less than 10 minutes and always tastes wonderfully light and fresh and flavorful. And it also happens to be naturally gluten-free and vegan — and somehow magically goes with just about any meal!
The sky’s the limit, of course, when it comes to customizing this recipe with whatever greens, veggies, nuts, or even dressing ingredients that you happen to have on hand. And if you feel like making a meal out of this salad, it also tastes delicious with an extra protein (such as chicken or shrimp) and/or some croutons added in too.
Anyway, if you’re interested in working more salads into your weekly lunch and dinner rotations, I hope you’ll give this salad recipe a try. It is definitely a favorite here in our house!
Everyday Salad Recipe | 1-Minute Video
Everyday Side Salad Ingredients:
As I mentioned above, the base ingredients in this salad are all incredibly flexible. So feel free to use whatever you love best or have on hand! You will just need some type of…
- Fresh greens: I tend to go with spring greens, baby arugula, or some sort of mixed greens for this salad. But any greens that you love best will work.
- English cucumber: We always keep a few English cucs in the refrigerator because they are easy to work with (you don’t have to mess with removing the seeds), they last for quite awhile in the crisper drawer (yay!), and they always taste so delicious with this salad! That said, feel free to use any type of cucumber that you prefer for this salad, or see other fresh veggie ideas below too.
- Red onion: If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you know that I can never resist adding some thinly-sliced fresh red onions to my salads. But if you don’t love them as much as I do, feel free to leave them out (or use sliced shallots as a milder alternative instead). Or to take the edge off of the red onion flavor, you can also briefly rinse the sliced onions in water before adding them to the salad.
- Nuts/seeds: Feel free to add in whatever nuts or seeds that you love best to give this tossed salad some extra crunch and protein! We’re partial to salty pepitas, toasted pine nuts, or sunflower seeds in our house. But toasted almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, or any other favorite nuts/seeds would be delicious options too.
- Everyday dressing: See below!
Everyday Salad Dressing Ingredients:
So many of you have made and loved my “everyday” salad dressing recipe over the past few years that I’ve since created a separate recipe post completely devoted to it if you would like to read more. ♡ But it’s basically just a great all-purpose salad dressing that comes together in minutes and goes with just about everything! To make it, you will need the following salad dressing ingredients:
- Olive oil: As always, I recommend using good-quality extra virgin olive oil when it comes to salad dressing recipes, since its flavor will really shine through.
- Lemon juice (or vinegar): We usually use freshly-squeezed lemon juice for this dressing. But if you don’t happen to have any fresh lemons on hand, you can sub in red wine vinegar instead.
- Dijon mustard: Which just adds some subtle flavor here and helps to round all of the flavors out. (Don’t worry, it won’t make it taste too mustard-y!)
- Garlic: I prefer to use minced or pressed fresh garlic in this dressing, but you can also sub in garlic powder if you prefer.
- Salt and black pepper: And finally, we will use fine sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper to season the dressing.
*The recipe included below makes a small amount of salad dressing, which we find works great with the portions listed in the recipes. But some readers prefer to double the amount of dressing, or you can make a considerably larger batch (as shown in the photo above) if you would like to have some pre-made salad dressing ready to go in the fridge for later in the week.
Optional Salad Add-Ins:
Beyond the base ingredients mentioned above, there are all sorts of extra add-ins and variations you can try out with this salad. So please feel free to customize this salad recipe and make it your own! For example, you could…
- Add a protein: Cooked chicken, steak, pork, shrimp, salmon (or other kinds of fish), scallops, or tofu would all be delicious additions to this salad.
- Add cheese: A variety of hard cheeses (such as shaved Parmesan, Pecorino, or Manchego), soft crumbled cheeses (such as goat cheese, feta, or gorgonzola), or soft mozzarellas (such as burrata or mini mozzarella) would all be delicious in this salad too.
- Add extra fresh veggies: In addition to (or in place of) the sliced English cucumbers, feel free to add in any other fresh veggies that you love, such as sliced bell peppers, carrots, radishes, celery, corn, etc.
- Add jarred veggies or olives: Feel free to also toss in any jarred veggies that you love, such as roasted red peppers, marinated artichokes, pepperoncini peppers, or olives.
- Add tomatoes: Fresh or sun-dried tomatoes would also be delicious in this salad.
- Add beans: And of course, you’re also welcome to add in any beans for extra protein too, such as chickpeas, lentils, white beans, or red kidney beans.
More Side Salad Recipes:
If you’re looking for more side salad inspiration, check out the rest of our simple “everyday” salad recipe collection, which includes simple recipes for Kale Salad, Italian Salad, Mexican Salad, Mediterranean Salad, and Sesame Slaw. Or feel free to check out some of our readers’ other favorite green salad recipes, including…
- The BEST Caesar Salad
- Greek Salad
- Fattoush Salad
- Strawberry Spinach Salad
- 5-Ingredient Arugula Salad
- Chipotle Cheddar Chopped Salad
Everyday Salad
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 mins
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 small servings 1x
Description
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 just about everything!
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients:
- 5 ounces spring greens mix (or any salad greens you prefer)
- half of an English cucumber, very thinly sliced
- half of a medium red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup pepitas or toasted pine nuts (or any other nuts or seeds you prefer)
Everyday Salad Dressing Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice (or red wine vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 small clove garlic, pressed or finely-minced (or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly-cracked black pepper
Instructions
- To Make The Dressing: Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl (or shake together in a mason jar) until combined.
- To Make The Salad: Combine all ingredients in a large salad bowl and toss with the dressing until evenly combined. Serve immediately and enjoy!
I put this dressing in Mason Jars & layered the cucumber & onion, etc ending with the Arugula pressed down at the top…it stays so fresh & lunches are made…Bonita
Such a Great Simple salad! The whole family loved it! So fresh and quick!
This salad is soo excellent! The dressing alone is a reason to go straight in face first but the versatility of the recipe is the real shining star. My first round was romaine, arugula and spinach with almonds and it was KILLER. Plus, it looks real snazzy next to a risotto and marsala chicken. I’m all about Ali’s recipes!!
I am 75 years old, retired and love to cook. Recently I have been spending several hours a week browsing recipes online looking for new or innovative ways to cook the foods we like. We are about 75% mediterranean diet, with much reduced red meat. I just found your blog site and recipes this morning and have spent the last three hours happily reading and making copies of recipe after recipe. It finally occured to me I should probably subscribe to your blog so I don’t have to waste so much paper on copying./ Your recipes are great, mostly very easy and you are an interesting reader to read. Haven’t decided how many of your recipes I will cook this week. My search this morning started with instant pot carnitas, so that will be one of them. Then I will definitely have to make the carnitas soup, and two or three chicken dishes. Thanks for contributing so much to older, stay at home people like me.
Linda
I just want to say keep up the good work! I check your blog weekly for menu planning. I love the photos and the recipes are spot-on.
Loved it!!!
Except for the raw onion, which I would have to omit, this sounds like a great salad. I rarely make “real” salad dressings, except for my mole vinaigrette. My everyday salads are lettuce, tomato and cucumber, with perhaps some leftover red bell pepper, topped with olive oil and good balsamic vinegar. We never get tired of that, but I also enjoy doing something different occasionally, so I’ll definitely try your dressing at some point. I really like the inclusion of pepitas in this salad.
Can’t wait to try this!
What a nice meal to reach for on an average day!
Kari
https://sweetteasweetie.com/beer-bread-for-dad/
The perfect recipe to use garden produce for! I love having salads often too.