Late Summer Salad with Lemon and Herb Dressing
This summer salad and lemony herb dressing take full advantage of seasonal veggies. It can be prepped in advance and is easy to batch so you’ll have a week of lunches planned out. Plant-based, gluten-free and dairy-free.
In the dog days of August, I really don’t feel like cooking. It’s too hot! Plus, it’s also the time of year when, thanks to my farmshare and garden, I’m overflowing with fresh veggies, most of them great raw.
So, late summer is officially salad season.
The salad and dressing recipe here is nothing fancy and shouldn’t take up too much of your time. Prep once, eat every day! If you’ve got multiple people to feed, you could even do a double batch. I like to just keep a ready-made salad on hand in the fridge so that when lunchtime strikes, I’m ready.
The other thing I love about this salad is it contains lots of different colored veggies- meaning you’re getting a variety of nutrients.
This recipe will make six generous-sized dinner salads (or a lot more side salads!). All you need to do is add a protein. And since we all have different tastes, I’m leaving that up to you. But here’s a few ideas to get you started:
A cup of beans- black or cannellini are good choices. Garbanzo, too. Heck, whatever you like or have on hand is a good choice!
A half cup of pan-fried tofu cubes or tempeh.
4 oz of wild caught salmon or pasture raised chicken.
A scoop of cooked quinoa or another whole grain adds in some extra fiber. And quinoa also provides an added dose of protein.
A sprinkle of nuts or seeds, like walnuts, toasted pine nuts, or hemp seeds.
Late Summer Salad
Makes 6 (dinner sized) salads
Ingredients
For the salad
2 cups of red cabbage, thinly sliced
2 cups of savoy cabbage, thinly sliced
1 medium sized head of lettuce (I used red leaf but you can use whatever you like)
1 medium beet, grated
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2-3 medium carrots, shredded
1 large heirloom tomato, diced
For the Dressing
1/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1-2 t raw honey
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs (like oregano, thyme, parsley, rosemary…)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 t sea salt
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/4 t black pepper
Directions
This is the easy part. Most of the work is in the prep, so all you need to do is assemble the salad (aka toss everything together in a large bowl) and mix the dressing (whisk everything together in a small bowl).
When you’re ready to serve, toss the dressing with the salad (don’t add the dressing to the salad until you’re ready to eat it).
Enjoy!
