I am so excited to share this kale salad with you today! I actually started making this salad last spring, but it seemed like more of a fall salad so I was saving it to share with you in the fall. Then of course life got busy, the blog got put on the back burner, and here we are at the tail end of fall and I’m finally putting this recipe on the blog. I hope you’ll forgive me because this salad is so good!

I love making a big batch of this kale salad and eating it for lunch for a few days. It is a great make-ahead salad and actually gets better if it sits for at least a few hours before you eat it. It makes a great lunch or side dish for dinner and it’s chock full of healthy ingredients.

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You are going to love this marinated vegetable pasta salad! It is a simple and classic summer salad that I can’t get enough of. This salad is chock full of veggies which add delicious crunch and flavor. The best part, however, is the super simple dressing! The dressing is made by combining tomatoes with oil and vinegar and spices and letting them sit until they create their own delicious marinade. You then add the tomatoes with their liquid to the salad and let the pasta and veggies soak up all the yummy dressing. The end result is going to be your new favorite summer salad. 🙂 This marinated vegetable pasta salad is perfect for pot lucks and summer picnics – you will love it!

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How good does this shopska salad look? If you are anything like me, you may not have heard of a shopska salad before! This salad is a Macedonian version of a chopped salad, and is perfect for summer. It is light and fresh and healthy – the perfect combination! Oh, and it’s also delicious. 🙂 This salad is incredibly easy to make and is perfect for potlucks, or as a light side dish for dinner. I’ve made this salad multiple times already this summer and love it more each time I make it. It’s refreshingly simple and absolutely bursting with flavor. Enjoy!

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I am currently obsessed with chopped salads. I just love that everything is bite sized and you get a little taste of all the toppings in every bite. When the nice people at the United Dairy Industry of Michigan asked me to create a chopped chicken taco salad I immediately said yes.  I could just picture the fresh sweet corn, creamy avocado, cilantro dressing,  etc. And thankfully the end result turned out to be just as good as I was imagining. 🙂

We LOVED this salad. I started with fresh green leaf lettuce and covered it with all sorts of toppings. You can mix and match whatever toppings you wanted, but I used black beans, corn, avocado, tomatoes, shredded Mexican cheese, tortilla strips, and of course chicken. I seasoned the chicken with taco seasoning before I cooked it, and it was absolutely delicious. It had a very mild Mexican flavor that paired perfectly with the salad. Zeke agreed and gobbled up piece after piece as I was building the salad. 🙂

The best part, though, is the cilantro lime dressing! It’s made with plenty of lime juice and cilantro, plus a little added taco seasoning to give it an extra kick. It was so good that I was dipping anything and everything into it – carrot sticks, peppers, tortilla chips, etc. 🙂 And I love that it’s made with Greek yogurt and buttermilk so that it’s actually fairly healthy and full of protein!

All in all this salad was completely delicious. You should know by now that I love recipes that are flexible and can be adjusted according to personal preference, and this is definitely one of those recipes. I have no doubt that you will love it too!

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Mike and I both love egg salad, but for some reason I almost never make it. When I was testing out this recipe for Greek yogurt egg salad, I was reminded of just how easy it is to mix this up, and also of what a filling meal it makes. This egg salad is simple and quick to make, and since I swapped out most of the mayonnaise for Greek yogurt, it’s also healthy!  I kept this recipe nice and basic, with just a few simple ingredients. I added in some diced celery for crunch, and some Dijon mustard and paprika for a little extra flavor.  The end result is creamy and delicious – you can’t even tell that it’s a lighter recipe! Feel free to play around with the ingredient amounts and seasonings to end up with the flavor you want. We loved it the way it’s written, but this is one recipe that’s easy to adjust to personal preference. Enjoy!

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Strawberry season is coming and I’ve got a great recipe to share with you today!  If you’re a fan of the classic ramen salad that is a tradition at potlucks and picnics (we are!), you will love this salad.

It’s got a great crunchy mix made up of ramen noodles, sesame seeds, and almonds, all toasted with butter until they are extra crunchy! Toss in some strawberries, Parmesan cheese, and homemade dressing, and you’ve got an absolutely delicious salad.

I made a smaller version of this salad for us to enjoy, then liked it so much that I made it again two days later to take to a potluck. Everyone there loved it, and it’s so easy that it just might be my go-to salad this spring!  It’s delicious as a side dish, but next time I might add some grilled chicken on top and, some crusty bread on the side and serve it for dinner. Yum!

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I am so excited to share this salad with you today! I actually made this months ago, but managed to take absolutely terrible pictures of it. 🙂 I wasn’t that upset though, because I was looking for an excuse to make it again! Plus, the timing worked out perfectly to share the recipe on the blog this week – this salad would be absolutely perfect for your Thanksgiving dinner! The base is a mix of kale and brussels sprouts, meaning it’s incredibly healthy. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste great. By the time you add in some slivered almonds, chopped bacon, and Parmesan cheese, you’ve got a salad that you can’t stop eating. I actually don’t usually like kale or brussels sprouts, and yet I absolutely loved this salad. Even Mike liked it! (Zeke, of course, took one tiny taste and made a face. But we all expected that.) I made a full batch of this on the weekend, and then ate some every day for lunch last week – yum! I hope you like this as much as we did. 🙂

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This is one of the best salads I’ve ever eaten. And actually, Mike declared that it was, in fact, the best salad he’d ever eaten! So really, that’s all the endorsement you need, right? 🙂 I’ve had this recipe for BLT Sandwich Salads in my “to make” pile for about a year. I have no idea what took me so long to make it, but it was definitely worth the wait. As you can guess from the name, it tastes like a BLT sandwich, but in salad form. Actually it tastes even better than the sandwich because of all the little extras thrown in. The bacon has a nice layer of brown sugar and spice caramelized on it, the croutons are freshly toasted on the stove, and the dressing is a combination of seemingly simple ingredients turned into something amazingly delicious. Add it all together, and this is one salad we couldn’t stop eating.

BLT Sandwich Salad

Ingredients:

For the salad:
1 head romaine lettuce, thinly sliced (about 6 cups)
1/2 cup chopped red onion
3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
4 slices white bread
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

For the bacon:
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, crushed in a bag with a mallet
6 strips center-cut bacon
6 sprigs fresh thyme

For the dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 to 2 tablespoons maple syrup
4 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Combine the lettuce, onion and tomatoes in a large bowl; set aside.

Meanwhile, cut the bread into crouton-size cubes. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the bread cubes and toast, tossing, until golden, about 6 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Make the bacon: Mix the brown sugar, paprika, lemon zest and crushed pepper in a small bowl. Add the bacon and press to coat on both sides. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; place the thyme sprigs on the parchment paper, then lay a strip of bacon on top of each sprig. Bake until the bacon is caramelized and crisp, about 20 minutes. Let cool slightly on the baking sheet. Cut the bacon into bite-size bits using scissors; add to the bowl with the lettuce. Discard the thyme.

Make the dressing: Whisk the mayonnaise, syrup, mustard and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Add the dressing to the salad and toss. (You may not need to use all of the dressing.) Sprinkle the croutons on top and serve immediately.

from Food Network Magazine, October 2011