I enjoy a fancy salad filled with exotic ingredients as much as the next Pinterest-obsessed blogger, but if you were to turn up for a midweek evening meal with the Love Audrey family, it’s this simple chopped salad that would most likely accompany your food.
When it comes to cooking, I feel strongly about learning to prepare basic dishes really, really well. A meal doesn’t have to be elaborate or groundbreaking to be great.
Think about how good it feels to eat a perfectly cooked jacket potato. Crispy skin mottled with sea salt. A fluffy white interior, steaming hot and soft to the touch. Imagine it dripping with butter and topped with a generous mound of melted mature cheddar. Unctuous and inviting, there’s something incredibly inviting about its effortless simplicity.
For me, a good chopped salad is all about expertly blending different textures and flavours to create something that is as delicious as it is simple. You need to strike the right balance between crisp, crunchy ingredients and the more tender elements like tomato and avocado. You want to season it well and add just the right amount of dressing.
Made well, a simple chopped salad will go with almost everything, but I think it really shines alongside Italian dishes {usually risotto, spaghetti bolognese or pasta alla puttanesca in this house}.
This isn’t necessarily a recipe you should follow to the letter. The foundation always remains the same {crisp lettuce, grated carrot, chopped tomatoes and a handful or two of wild rocket}, but the other elements are ever-changing.
For the version pictured here, I used grated courgette to replace the avocado, which is usually squished unceremoniously from its skin and broken into bite-sized pieces. The grated stem of a broccoli is also delicious.
Similarly, the amounts I suggest below are loose and open to interpretation. Play around with your ingredients and see which combination you like best. My only stipulation is that you dress the salad before adding the rocket. These delicate leaves benefit more from a gentle brush with the oil and vinegar as opposed to an intense drizzle.
You will need:
- Crispy lettuce such as Little Gem, Iceberg or Cos
- 3 carrots
- 1 ripe avocado
- 3 tomatoes {or the equivalent of a smaller variety}, always ripe and mixed-colour where possible
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 70g rocket
1. Shred the washed lettuce into a large bowl. Coarsely grate the carrots and add them to the mix.
2. Squeeze and squidge the avocado into the bowl, discarding the skin and stone. Roughly chop the tomatoes and throw them in too.
3. Season with salt and pepper, then drizzle with the oil and balsamic. Add the rocket and toss everything together.
You can read the other posts in the Salad Days series here and explore my dedicated Pinterest board here.
Are there any super simple dishes that you find yourself making again and again?
Love Audrey xxx
