A mixed salad always works – whether at home or in a restaurant. A concentrated dose of vitamins and healthy fats is never a bad thing and an important part of a healthy, balanced diet. For that reason, and because this salad is incredibly quick to make (in under 5 minutes), we have a colourful, crunchy salad like this at home at least once a week.
The great thing about this recipe is that you can swap the ingredients as you like – the base is always fresh salad leaves and crunchy vegetables. In the end, anything that tastes good is allowed.
A little salad building kit
Salad leaves
The base of every mixed salad is a fresh, crunchy head of lettuce. You can choose between all sorts of varieties: oak leaf, romaine, iceberg, radicchio, …. the choice is huge.
Vegetables
For a wonderfully colourful effect and extra vitamins, you can work your way right through the vegetable aisle here. Radishes, carrots, cucumber, fennel, tomatoes, grilled vegetables, mushrooms and so on are all delicious.
Herbs
To give the salad some freshness and a special aroma, you can add herbs such as chives, mint, basil or cress.
Cheese
Good news for all cheese fans: you can top your salad with parmesan, feta or any other cheese of your choice.
Meat and fish
If the salad is allowed to be a bit heartier, feel free to add grilled chicken, beef or even fish.
Other toppings
If the ingredients so far still weren't enough for you, you can also finish the salad off with seeds, nuts, fruit or bread croûtons.
In short: you can't go wrong with a mixed salad, anything that tastes good is allowed here. And the variations really are endless, so you could eat salad every day without ever having the same one on the table.
The dressing
But before we get to the actual recipe, there's still the question of all questions: which dressing goes with this salad?
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a fan of ready-made salad dressings from the supermarket at all. Besides the fact that, in my opinion, all dressings taste practically the same, they're unfortunately also super unhealthy because of their ingredients, so an originally healthy salad can turn into an unhealthy meal.
The solution: it's best to make the salad dressing yourself. That's really easy with a good olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar plus salt and pepper. You can either prepare this dressing for the whole week and refine it as you like with a little honey and mustard, or you do it the way they do on holiday in Italy or the way we do at home: just drizzle a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salad before serving, add salt and pepper, and there you have the quickest, easiest and at the same time healthy salad dressing. I guarantee you'll be surprised how something so simple can taste so good.
Mixed Salad
- Preparation5 min
- Total5 min
- Calories170kcal
- Carbohydrates7gof which sugars 5 g
- Protein3g
- Fat14gof which saturated 2 g
- Fibre3g
per serving
Ingredients
- 1 head of lettuce (large)
- 2 carrots
- 1/2 cucumber
- 100 gr cherry tomatoes
- 5 radishes
- 1 handful of mixed seeds and nuts (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and cashews, almonds)
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Trim the lettuce, wash it in cold water and spin off the excess water in a salad spinner.
- Trim and wash the remaining vegetables and cut them into rings or small pieces.
- Divide the green salad between four bowls, scatter the vegetables over the top and, for the dressing, drizzle over some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Finally, sprinkle a few seeds and nuts over the top and serve.
Notes
The vegetables can be swapped as you like and according to the season. Fennel, grilled bell peppers, courgettes or mushrooms are also delicious.
If you like, you can also add crispy bread croutons or a little parmesan on top. There are no limits to your imagination here.
Cooking with essential oils
How to dose essential oils (toothpick method!), when to add them and what to look out for — it is all in the guide.
Have you made this recipe? Tag @oatoclock_blog on Instagram so we can see the result.
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