A simple Italian salad can be a light meal or a great side dish for meat or fish.

There are infinite ways you can enjoy a salad, but this simple Italian classic is definitely a no-brainer. You will only need few ingredients to whip up the perfect light and tasty salad for your mid-week lunchbox or dinner. Even better for those hot summer days when all you want to do is relax.

Italian Salad: the basics

Italians like their salad simple. No need for super salty, fatty seasonings that come in a bottle. The real Italian salad dressing is extra virgin olive oil. The basic rules when you prefer a salad are:

• Keep it simple: do not mix too many ingredients. Social media are filled with bowls with pretty much whatever you have in your cupboard, but I really recommend to take it easy. Enjoy the flavors! If you want to boost your fiber intake, it does not mean you have to do it all in one meal. When you load your salad with all sort of ingredients the result will be a mushy blend of everything. you want to taste the salad instead. More so if you are using the salad as a side dish.
• Make it easy: instead of going everywhere to find exotic ingredients, seasonings, dressing and what not, use what you can find in your farmers market or your nearest grocery store. Buy some fresh organic lettuce,  you may use red and green to boost the antioxidant content. And this might suffice. Once you have a good quality lettuce and extra virgin olive oil, you really do not need anything else (maybe some vinegar to give it a little kick).
• No more than 3 ingredients: to keep the salad balance try to avoid using more than 3 main ingredients. For example you can use lettuce, olives and tomatoes. Once you add extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper you’re good to go. You can use lettuce, olives and home made crostini. Mix what you like the most and dress it with olive oil, vinegar (balsamic is great too) and it’s done. This rule might not be as good if you want to make a big salad as main dish. In this case you may want to add a few more ingredients, maybe some protein, like boiled eggs, tuna or salmon.

Variations, additions and useful tips

Once you know the basic rules to prepare the best simple Italian salad, you can start add some more ingredients, without the risk of overpowering the taste or make it bland. Some ingredients are great for salads, you can use just a little bit but reap a lot of benefits for them.

• Nuts and seeds: if you want to get more fiber and other nutrients add a teaspoon of nuts or seed, rather than a lot of other ingredients. It’s also a great addition to give any salad a bit of crunch.
• Sea greens: nowadays is easy to find seaweed (I like better to call them sea greens actually). Try using wakame or sea lettuce. They both go very well with lettuce or tomatoes and add extra fibers, minerals and important nutrients like omega 3s.

If  you are serving the salad as a side, you may want to use only leafy greens like lettuce and radicchio, or two types of lettuce. Salad served as side should mainly clean the palate for the next dish. If your salad is too rich it might spoil the dish you’re serving it with.

A classic example: if you are eating a high quality steak grilled and seasoned with only salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, you do not want to spoil the taste of the meat. Using a simple lettuce salad with will complement perfectly the meat.

Italian Salad dressing: how to make it?

If you already checked my article on Italian dressing, you already know that there is nothing like bottled dressing in Italy. When you want to make a salad the ingredients you’ll need are simple: oil, salt, pepper and vinegar (optional).

• Extra virgin olive oil: be careful when shopping for olive oil. There are a tons of oil that are not high quality, in fact many are counterfeit and contains other oils. Extra virgin olive oil is the one that is made less than 12h from the olive picking. It is made ONLY with olives from the trees, not the one that fell to the ground. A very very high quality product, and that is why is very expensive. However, a little goes a long way. If you use a high quality olive oil, you won’t need to use that much. In my house a bottle of extra virgin olive oil lasts about 2 months. I use it mainly raw and when I stir fry some veggie I only use a teaspoon or two.
• Salt: When talking about salt I usually totally avoid table salt. I only use sea salt, not refined that still has all the minerals in it. If you want to go extra fancy, try some Himalayan salt, black salt or other special salt. These salts usually are rich in trace minerals that are very important for our bodies, and are also less processed.
• Vinegar: you can use whatever vinegar you have handy. Balsamic, apple cider, white or red vinegar, any type will do. The sour taste from the vinegar is perfect for all the simple salads.
• Special dressing ingredients: if you want to make a really elaborate dressing, you can try simple ingredients like miso or shio koji. Not exactly Italian ingredients but they work pretty well in salads and you can reduce or skip the salt altogether if you use one of them.

How to prepare a simple Italian salad

Ingredients

• a bunch of lettuce or red and green lettuce
• some radicchio (if you like the sour taste)
• olives
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• herbed home made crostini (optional)

Method

• Wash the greens thoroughly cut it finely and put into a bowl.
• Cut the olives and add them to the bowl.
• Add salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil and mix. If you use the crostini you can add them after the seasonings. Mix well and add the crostini cut into cubes.