Name: Simple Green Salad
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 25 min
Ingredients: 1 avocado (chopped); 2 spring onions (scallions) (finely chopped); 1 small lettuce or choice of leaves (arugula, pea shoots, baby spinach, lamb's lettuce); 2 tbsp fresh peas (shelled); 30 g (2 tbsp) pumpkin seeds and/or walnuts; 1 apple (Granny Smith, Braeburn or Chantecler) (chopped); 2 tbsp fresh herbs (chives, parsley, chervil or basil) (finely chopped); 3 tbsp olive oil (extra virgin); 1 tbsp white wine or cidre vinegar; ½ tsp each pepper and salt (fleur de sel, Maldon flakes or Celtic sea salt)

Jump to Recipe

Create your own healthy, simple green salad using a variety of fresh green vegetables.

This most versatile side dish is tossed in a light French dressing and given extra flavours with fresh herbs and crunchy toasted pumpkin seeds that pairs perfectly with any meal.

green salad tossed in French dressing with added toasted nuts, herb flowers and wild strawberries

What is a Green Salad Made Of in France?

What's funny is that the French don't normally add much to a simple green salad.
'Une salade verte' served in a crêperie, for example, is normally just a few lettuce leaves tossed in vinaigrette with a few chopped chives or parsley as an afterthought. Perhaps also because 'salade' translated into English is lettuce. So that's normally what arrives in a little bowl if we ask for it.

However, as we're making this at home we can add many things - that's the beauty of this recipe. Choosing the best green salad ingredients is down to what you can find that's both fresh and in season for the ultimate flavour and nutrients. The result is you can adapt it from your summer to winter recipes - even for your holiday dishes.

Healthiest Raw Green Vegetables

Based on fresh raw ingredients that are in season, there's so much choice for green salad alone.

Choose from your favourite green lettuce leaves. Here are just some: iceberg, gem, lamb's lettuce, baby spinach and pea shoots. If you like your leaves with a more sharp, peppery taste, go for watercress, arugula or rocket. Would you believe the French adore slightly bitter Dandelion leaves (known as 'pissenlit')?

Leaves aside, add chopped avocado, green bell peppers, cucumber, papaya, and fava beans. If possible, add spring onions (THE salad onion), it definitely adds extra flavour as raw garlic is difficult to digest. Just ask my Corsican mother-in-law; she'll give you a lecture on the subject, but that's another story. At least chop up a shallot.

Perhaps the ultimate raw veg is fresh raw peas. There's nothing to beat 'les petits-pois' straight out of their pods with that unmistakable flavour and natural crunch.

wooden salad bowl with arugula, avocado fand chopping board with spring onions, asparagus, apple and toasted pumpkin seeds

What Cooked Green Vegetables Can I use in Salad?

So, for cooked green vegetables add green beans, cauliflower/broccoli, or asparagus, - whatever freshest produce you can find. Cook briefly (about 5 minutes) in boiling water, top up with cold water, drain and chop into the salad.

For me, the best green salad in the world is with oven-roasted asparagus. It doesn't take long in the oven - promise!

According to Auguste Escoffier (Guide Culinaire) a simple green salad is made up of raw greens. If we add a variety of cooked vegetables, then it becomes a composed salad, such as the classic Niçoise Salad. Although, this latter real-deal from Nice actually doesn't contain cooked vegetables like green beans or potatoes!
I'm adding this just so you know, but we like to add a few seasonal cooked and cooled veg, just for the thrill (Jings, I live life in the fast lane!)

spoon of mixed vinegar and oil to create a French vinaigrette — Even the salad dressing is smiling

Simple French Dressing

The whole lot is tossed in the lightest French dressing: the simplest vinaigrette made with white wine or cider vinegar and olive oil. Just place in a jar and shake. I mean, shake the jar, not you, and with the lid on (sometimes I do state the obvious, no?).

For a simple salad, the dressing rule is
3 parts oil to one part vinegar, salt and pepper.
Auguste Escoffier in his Guide Culinaire (1903)

Add the sauce just before you serve. There's nothing worse than salad that has been sitting in its dressing for too long and resulted in turning limp, lifeless and downright soggy. Keep it crisp!

Either place salad directly on serving plates and dribble over the vinaigrette. Better still, pour over the sauce in the salad bowl and give it a good toss together so that everyone present turns up dressed and slightly shiny!

plates of green salad with lamb's lettuce, fresh peas, chives and spring onions — Adding herb flowers (chives seen here) is pretty but the flavour is even better

Adding the Finishing Touches: The Crunch and Punch

For the finishing crunch with nuts and seeds, add toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas, also green). Pepitas are good for you, with a good source of iron. Just one portion of this salad provides 22% of your daily value of iron.

Toast them, just like for walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios or sesame seeds, without any oil in a frying pan. Toss around for only 3-5 minutes, depending on your preferred toastiness. This helps to bring out their flavour and is such a handy topping on all sorts of light lunches and salads. Make a large batch and, once cool, store in a lidded jar for up to 6 weeks.

For extra flavour, add some fresh herbs - even herb flowers if you can, which taste just as good. Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley particularly provides a vitamin C boost. Otherwise personal favourites are chives, basil, mint, coriander/cilantro, chervil and tarragon.

For more on flowers and herbal flavours,
see the guide to aromatic fresh herbs.

the best ever forkful with most green vegetables piled high

Extra Ingredients

Use the recipe card below as a guide, as it's the type of simple salad that changes to season and your taste. While some are green, others are vegetables and fruit that are just as good with different textures and tastes.
It all depends on what you're serving it with. Optional ingredient ideas (with their corresponding market guide pages):

Radishes - add them whole, sliced or toss in a few pickled radishes (without sugar).
Beetroot - either sliced pickled or grated raw.
Carrots - grated adds colour for the bunnies at the table.
Olives - we particularly love small Niçois olives as less sharp, but go green with the salty, large Kalamatas (that will keep them quiet a while!) If with stones, don't forget to warn guests at the table.
Apples - we love the touch of acidity. Granny Smith, Braeburn, Chantecler do it.
Strawberries - Why not? Like tomatoes, this works. I had a simple strawberry and arugula salad with parmesan and deleted it by accident 2 years ago. It's basically the same recipe!
Parmesan - which reminds me. A few shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano is delicious with above arugula and wild strawberries.

a colourful spring green salad: avocado, asparagus, peas, pea shoots, herbs, pumpkin seeds and pickled radish

Serving Ideas

See how versatile it is? This simple and popular kind of side salad can be served with:

Breakfast or brunch: with cheese scones and cheese waffles.
Light lunches and picnics: with cold and cured meats, pizza, tarts and cheese.
Delicious with onion tarte tatin, smoked haddock fishcakes and a Corsican mint omelette. A green salad is, however, most served in France with classic savoury crêpes, our popular thin buckwheat pancakes from Brittany and Normandy.
Main dishes: BBQs, grilled meats, risotto and pasta.
Perfect with chorizo risotto, Corsican cheese lasagna, goat's cheese pasta, creamy lemon pasta sauce and Alsatian egg noodles.

Creating a simple green salad is both delicious and nutritious at any time of year. Try out this recipe with your favourite seasonal veggies and enjoy a refreshing and satisfying dish that complements any meal.

More salads to enjoy:

Warm Goat's Cheese Salad (salade de chèvre chaud)
Roquefort Salad with pear and walnuts (the King of French blue cheese)
Roast beetroot salad with smoked mackerel
Land and sea salad (terre et mer)
Classic Niçoise salad