This vegan chopped Summer Salad recipe is tossed in a delicious creamy herb dressing. It's so fresh, tasty, and easy to customize with your own favorite summer vegetables! (Vegan, gluten-free, oil-free.)
This chopped salad is summer in a bowl! It's packed with bright colors, seasonal flavors, and fresh goodness.
It features crisp romaine and a colorful medley of veggies. Then it's all tossed in a creamy, delicious herb dressing made with whole food, plant-based ingredients. It's oil-free, slightly tangy, and so fresh.
Best of all, you can can easily customize this salad based on your own favorite veggies. Swap in whatever you have on hand, or whatever sounds good. It's a great dish to make when garden vegetables are at peak harvest!
Ingredients for Summer Salad
For this recipe, you'll toss together in a large bowl:
- Romaine: Or you can use other mixed greens of choice, but I prefer the crispness of romaine with this recipe.
- Cucumber: I use English/hothouse cucumbers because I find they are more flavorful. But seedless garden cucumbers work great too.
- Orange bell pepper
- Grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes: I like these best with this salad because they are so sweet and flavorful. But you can substitute roma tomato, plum tomatoes, garden tomatoes, etc.
- Red onion: Or you can substitute green onion for milder flavor.
- Sweet corn: Either use a cooked fresh ear of corn, canned corn, fire-roasted corn, etc.
- Creamy herb dressing: We'll make one batch of my Creamy Avocado Herb Dressing. It combines healthy ingredients like avocado, fresh parsley, fresh basil, lemon juice, garlic, and vinegar.
Customizing
Vegetables: Add other veggies like sugar snap peas, purple cabbage, roasted red bell pepper, Kalamata olives, artichokes, or even fresh sprouts.
Nuts & seeds: Sprinkle in some sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, or other nut or seed of choice.
Beans: Add garbanzo beans (chickpeas), white beans, or any other beans that sound good. Seasoned vegan bacon crumbles would also be tasty.
Vegan cheese: Add dairy-free cheese like feta crumbles or vegan blue cheese if desired.
Storing
Store separately: If making ahead of time, store the dressing and salad separately in airtight containers in the refrigerator. This helps it stay fresh and crisp. Then simply toss together to combine right before serving.
For more inspiration, also browse all romaine lettuce recipes or gluten-free recipes.
Summer Chopped Salad with Creamy Herb Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 large head romaine
- 1 English/hothouse cucumber
- 1 orange bell pepper (or carrot)
- 6 oz. grape tomatoes
- 1/3 cup red onion
- 1 1/2 cups cooked sweet corn
- 1 batch Creamy Avocado Herb Dressing
Instructions
- Make the dressing: Prepare the Creamy Avocado Herb Dressing. (Or do this ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator until ready to use.)
- Prepare the veggies: Roughly chop the romaine and place in a large bowl. Dice cucumber and bell pepper. Halve/quarter the tomatoes. Finely dice red onion. Add to bowl. Then add the corn.
- Assemble salad: Pour the desired amount of dressing over the top and toss well to combine. (Alternatively, you can store salad and dressing in separate containers in the fridge until ready to serve.)
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving (Estimate)
Sodium content: This is omitted as I cannot provide an accurate number. I encourage you to calculate your own to provide a much more precise reading based on the exact ingredients, brands, and amounts you're using.
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Janice says
Really nice salad for summertime. I added chickpeas. The dressing was fresh and yummy!
Kaitlin says
Great to hear!