This simple green salad recipe is the most versatile side dish you can make. It's healthy, quick and easy - just toss together a variety of fresh, seasonal vegetables for a simple mixed green salad that pairs perfectly with any meal. Add a light French dressing with only 3 ingredients, some fresh herbs and toasted seeds for extra flavour and texture
What Does a Green Salad Include?
In France, 'une salade verte' usually means just lettuce - no frills. Expect a handful of leaves dressed in vinaigrette with some chopped herbs. Ask for a green salad in a Paris crêperie, and that's exactly what you'll get.
But at home we can do better. A simple mixed green salad can be so much more - just by adding what's in season for ultimate flavour and nutrients. The result is you can adapt it from your summer to winter recipes - even for your holiday dishes.
How to Make Salad in a Simple Way
- Pick fresh, seasonal greens
- Add texture with raw or lightly cooked veg
- Toss in a simple green salad dressing with 3 ingredients
- Top with toastsed seeds, herbs or even fruit.
Best Ingredients for a Green Salad
For the best green salad, choose from your favourite, fresh and seasonal 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.
Salad with Cooked Green Vegetables
According to French chef, 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!)
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 takes just a few minutes in the oven.
Simple French Dressing - 3 Ingredients
Toss in the lightest French dressing made with olive oil, white wine or cider vinegar and seasoned with pepper and salt. Shake in a jar with the lid on (well, yes).
For a simple salad, the dressing rule is
Auguste Escoffier in his Guide Culinaire (1903)
3 parts oil to one part vinegar, salt and pepper.
Add the salad dressing just before you serve to keep it crisp. There's nothing worse than salad that has been sitting in its sauce for too long and resulted in turning limp, lifeless and downright soggy.
Salad Toppings: Fresh Herbs and Seeds
For crunch and nutrition, toast a handful of:
- 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.
- Walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios or sesame seeds
Dry-fry in a pan without any oil for 3-5 mins. 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.
Fresh herbs make all the difference too. Try:
- Flat-leaf parsley - particularly provides a vitamin C boost.
- Chives, basil, mint, coriander/cilantro, chervil and tarragon.
- Also top with a sprinkling of French croûtons with garlic.
For more on flowers and herbal flavours,
see the guide to aromatic fresh herbs.
Extra Ingredients to Try
The beauty of a simple green salad is how it changes with the seasons - and it's the best in the world! Here are a few additions that aren't always green - but taste fabulous:
- Radishes - whole, sliced or pickled radishes (without sugar)
- Beetroot - sliced pickled or grated raw
- Carrots - grated for colour
- Olives - try small Niçois olives as less sharp, or salty, large Kalamatas.
- Apples - for acidity: Granny Smith, Braeburn, Chantecler
- Strawberries - Yes really. Like tomatoes, this works. Especially with arugula and parmesan.
- Parmesan - thin shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano bring salty umami.
How to Serve
Serve this French-style green salad recipe with just about anything:
For Breakfast, brunch or Light lunch:
- cheese scones or cheese waffles
- onion tarte tatin
- smoked haddock fishcakes
- Corsican mint omelette
- Mostly served with classic savoury crêpes, our popular thin buckwheat pancakes from Brittany and Normandy.
For Dinner to accompany Main dishes:
- BBQs, grilled meats, risotto and pasta
- chorizo risotto
- Corsican cheese lasagna,
- goat's cheese pasta
- creamy lemon pasta sauce and Alsatian egg noodles.
- Croque Monsieur (French café classic).
More French salad recipes to enjoy:
- French potato salad
- 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)
- Carrot Salad, Moroccan style
- Classic Niçoise salad
Simple Green Salad
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 tablespoon fresh peas shelled
- 30 g (2 tbsp) pumpkin seeds and/or walnuts
- 1 apple (Granny Smith, Braeburn or Chantecler) chopped
- 2 tablespoon fresh herbs (chives, parsley, chervil or basil) finely chopped
Simple French Dressing
- 3 tablespoon olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tablespoon white wine or cidre vinegar
- ½ tsp each pepper and salt fleur de sel, Maldon flakes or Celtic sea salt
Instructions
- Wash the salad leaves and dry by shaking them over the sink or, even better, with a salad spinner. Chop up all the other vegetables, fruit (if using) and place in a large salad bowl. Add the apple last (to avoid browning) and chopped fresh herbs.
- Toast the seeds and/or nuts. Place them in a non-stick frying pan without any oil and toast for just 3-5 minutes, depending on how you like them toasted. Shake about a few times in the pan for even toasting. Set aside on the counter to cool (see NOTES) then add to the bowl.
Simple French Dressing
- Pour the olive oil and vinegar into a jar or bowl with seasoning to your taste and mix well. Pour over the salad just before serving and toss well.
