Slightly Sweet, Simple Chopped Salad
Unfortunately I don’t have a good photo for this one given that my boyfriend started smashing the salad as soon as I put it on the table (ha!)… but I guess you can take that as a good sign that this salad is worth making (and, of course, eating!)
Always a bit nervous to experiment with making new salads as I’ve made my fair share of less than mediocre ones, I was pretty reluctant to throw this one together, knowing that I could always just stick to my classic hit: my Vegan Kale Caesar. But with some sort of intuition that I can’t quite explain, I was called to throw these particular ingredients together to make my next latest and greatest salad… and in a matter of minutes, this slightly sweet, simple chopped salad was born! Let’s get choppin’. Let’s get eatin’.
Yields 4 servings | Prep time: 10 minutes | Cook time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
1/2 bunch of Romaine lettuce
1/2 Fuji apple
1/2 cucumber
1 large lemon
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
a handful of cashews
Kosher sea salt
Black pepper
Directions
On a large cutting board, slice the bunch of romaine lettuce in half (vertically) and place the half you won’t be using back in the fridge. Keep the remaining half on the cutting board and place it horizontal to you. Slice the romaine into very thin strips starting with the thicker white end, moving slowly towards the thinner green end until you have chopped the entire thing. Place romaine strips into a large salad bowl.
Slice the half cucumber into thin pieces. Gather the thin slices and chop roughly into thin strips, as similar as possible to the size of the romaine strips.
Cut the half apple into thin slices, making sure to cut away (and discard) pieces of the core and seeds. Like the cucumber, gather the thin slices and chop roughly into thin strips, trying to achieve the same size strips as the cucumber and romaine.
Break a handful’s worth of cashews into small pieces and throw into bowl with romaine, apples and cucumber.
In a small bowl squeeze the juice of the lemon, making sure to discard all of the seeds. Pour in the olive oil and stir. Feel free to play around with the amount of olive oil you add to the bowl. Start with less and gradually add in more, tasting along the way, until you like the lemon to olive oil ratio. You don’t want it to taste like straight up lemon juice (or straight up olive oil), so try to get it to be as close to a 1:1 ratio if possible (or however you like it). Sprinkle in some kosher salt (we love Maldon!) and fresh ground pepper - to taste. A light sprinkle of each should be sufficient. Stir mixture together.
Pour the dressing into the salad bowl and mix thoroughly, making sure everything is sufficiently tossed and dressed.
Serve and enjoy!