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Mediterranean Crunch Salad

May 11, 2011

I originally saw this Whole Foods recipe for Mediterranean Crunch Salad on Facebook, and shared it on my Chick in the Kitchen Facebook page. Several people commented favorably about the recipe, so I decided to make it to go with our Mother’s Day brunch of bagels and appetizing (lox, whitefish salad, baked salmon… the works!). However, it was J. that wound up chopping, chopping, chopping all morning long when I got behind schedule.

He is much faster at vegetable prep than I am, and I am not exaggerating when I say it took him at least 45 minutes to wash, trim, and dice everything in this salad. We left out the kale and added a yellow pepper instead, which brought a nice bright color to the mix as well as some sweetness. At first taste, neither of us loved this salad, and J. was annoyed with how long it had taken to prepare. An hour after mixing it together (the recipe says to chill it for that length of time) it was a little better, but it still just tasted like cubes of vegetables with vinegar. I didn’t hear anyone mention that they liked it during the brunch, either.

However, I was determined to eat all the leftovers so J.’s hard work did not go to waste. And the next day, this salad was great! The herbs, vinegar, and garlic melded into a flavorful dressing. The broccoli, pepper, and onion had softened a little, taking a bit of the titular “crunch” out of this chopped salad and helping all those vegetables form a kind of multi-veg experience rather than each one fighting to be its own flavor. One of the Facebook comments suggested added feta cheese to the mix, and I did that on my final serving of salad — the saltiness of the feta complimented the now-marinated vegetables perfectly.

I really like chopped salads, so I know we’ll make some kind of similar version of this again… especially if I can convince J. to do the chopping.

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Filed under: Veggie Mains,Veggie Sides

Tags: kale, Mother Day, recipe, Whole Foods