Autumn Vegetable Salad with Cheese
You can make a vegetable salad all year round, and we do. But when autumn comes, the choice of fresh seasonal vegetables keeps growing, and simple salads get even better when you combine different greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs. There is always something to choose from. In the Mediterranean, local cooks work wonders with very simple salads made from endive, lettuce, romaine, frisée and leafy cabbage, and the abundance of fresh vegetables makes these salads both vitamin-rich and delicious.
People have long understood that certain foods help with certain illnesses. And diets? Without vegetable salads, a diet is misery with no payoff. Since vitamins were discovered more than 100 years ago, the role of food in keeping us healthy has only grown. Scurvy, for example, calls for vitamin C: citrus fruit, spinach, kiwi, rose hips, red bell pepper and blackcurrants. My grandmother used to say: eat your salad, it has vitamins and life itself in it.
Greens, and salad leaves in particular, are record holders for vitamin content. Any vegetable salad can easily replace a vitamin pill from the pharmacy. Green salads are good for you and always tasty, even without mayonnaise, and I know that phrase makes many people doubtful. But people have eaten green salads since ancient times, and wild salad leaves grow all over the world. Cultivation has made salad leaves one of the main vegetables for salads.
Endive, for example, is a salad chicory, and it makes an excellent vegetable salad. The beautiful crisp leaves of romaine are the base of the most famous appetizer of American cuisine, Caesar salad. Pale green heads of napa cabbage go well with any vegetables. A very tasty napa cabbage salad with grilled chicken is another good one. In fact, any green salad you can buy, buy it and use it in a salad.
As a rule, a vegetable salad is made right before serving so the vegetables do not release their juice. For the same reason, salad leaves are torn into pieces with your fingers rather than cut with a knife. Salt and dressing go on at the table. Judging by myself, a vegetable salad and a piece of fresh bread are often quite enough for dinner.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Salad greens (lettuce, romaine, endive, frisée) 1 bunch
- Cherry tomatoes 15-20
- Cucumber 1-2
- Parsley 5-6 sprigs
- Fresh basil 2-3 sprigs
- Salad onion 1
- Parmesan or Grana Padano 2 tbsp
(14 g) - Olive oil 2-3 tbsp
- Salt, lemon juice or wine vinegar, oregano to taste
- Garlic, hot chili pepper optional
Step-by-step recipe
Any vegetable salad made of salad leaves and fresh vegetables is very quick, under 15 mins. If you can, soak the leaves in cold water beforehand so they turn crisp. Then dry them well, otherwise the salad will “swim” in water. Keep in mind that many salad greens are slightly bitter. Endive, a salad chicory, is a relative of the dandelion. Arugula contains mustard oil. But an autumn vegetable salad, even with slightly bitter leaves, is an excellent source of vitamins and can grace even a fancy table. And that pleasant bitterness whets the appetite.
Rinse the salad leaves under running water, shake them well, then pat dry with a towel. No water should get into the salad. Tear the leaves into small pieces with your fingers, discarding the tough central ribs. Put the torn leaves in a salad bowl.
Peel the sweet salad onion and slice it into very thin strips. The onion can be white or purple, it does not matter, but it should not be too sharp. The so-called “Yalta” onion is perfect. If the cucumbers are young with bright green skin, you do not need to peel them. Cut the cucumbers into small cubes.
Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes and cut each in half. If you have no small tomatoes, use regular large ones, but seed them and cut into cubes or wedges. Finely chop the parsley with a knife, leaves only, no stems.
In a salad bowl, combine all the cut vegetables: the prepared salad leaves, onion, tomatoes and cucumber, and add the parsley. Pick the basil leaves off the sprigs and discard the stems. Add small basil leaves whole and tear larger ones by hand.
Right before serving, salt the salad to taste, add a pinch of dried oregano and half of the grated cheese. Toss gently, lifting the salad from the bottom so the vegetables do not release more liquid. You really just want to turn it over.
Divide the salad among individual bowls. Dress it with a little natural olive oil and lemon juice (or wine vinegar). Sprinkle generously with finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano, and serve.
An autumn salad of salad leaves, fresh vegetables and herbs is a tasty source of vitamins. It is a great appetizer, but it also works as a vegetable side dish for meat or battered chicken fillet.
By the way, if you like garlic, add one small peeled clove, chopped very finely with a knife. Do not grate it, you will get too much garlic juice. If you like heat, add a sliced red or green hot chili pepper.
Calories and macros
250 kcal
Serving ≈ 360 g
- Protein6 g10% of kcal
- Fat19 g72% of kcal
- Carbs12 g19% of kcal
100 g69 kcalProtein 1.6 gFat 5.5 gCarbs 3.2 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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