Category Archives: Amazing Salads

Quinoa Chopped Salad

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When I want a salad for lunch, this is my go-to. Every time. I can’t help but love it because it’s fast to assemble. And since I try to keep cooked quinoa in the fridge weekly, so this is even snappier to make.

I also use this salad to clean out my fridge. I make pickled veg all summer long, so an easy way to use the pickled item all up since it doesn’t last long (about three weeks) is to throw some of each type into my salads. I love colourful, tasty, vibrant pickled items like red onion and carrots. They just set the creamy salad dressings off so nicely. They also break up normal meals so they don’t get monogamous over time.

Mix it up!

Here is how I made enough for an baby entree sized serving. Add protein if desired.

Quinoa Chopped Salad:
1/2 C Cooked Quinoa
1/2 C Shredded Lettuce
1 Persian Cucumber, quartered and sliced
1/4 Roma Tomato, diced
2 Forkfuls of Pickled Red Onion Slices
2 Forkfuls of Pickled Carrot Strands
Creamy Dressing of choice, enough to coat everything in the bowl at the very least

Summer Salads – Potato

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This is my riff on Simply LaKita’s Southern Potato Salad. Her recipe is as delicious as it is straightforward. You will have your potato salad made in no time at all. I use the same base materials and steps, but I add two other ingredients. If my additions scare you, trust me when I say LaKita knows what she’s doing, so you can check out her original recipe instead. 🙂

Taco Potato Salad:
5 Russet Potatoes, peeled, diced
Half a medium sized mixing bowl of cold water + 1/2 tea salt

Prep and rest your potatoes in the mixing bowl as you peel and dice them up. Rinse the diced potatoes twice with cold water. Dump into a pot with water to boil. When the water hits its boiling point, add 1-2 teaspoons of salt. Always salt your starches!

Rinse out the mixing bowl using cold water. Add some ice and add some cold water. Drain the pot water after the potatoes hit fork tender stage. Drop the potatoes immediately into the mixing bowl to come stop the cooking and chill the potatoes.

3 Eggs, room temperature
1 tea White Vinegar
Half a small sized mixing bowl of cold water + ice

Bring eggs up to boil in water + vinegar, and then drop to a simmer. Cover and let them cook for 11 mins. Remove the eggs immediately and drop into the iced water bath to rest 10 mins before peeling. Smash both ends on all of the eggs before carefully getting fingernails under the membrane to smoothly remove the shell fragments. Wipe the eggs off on a paper towel before chopping up.

Dump the potatoes and egg chops into the rinsed out mixing blow and add the dressing:

1/2 C Mayo
2 Tbsp Relish
1 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
1+ Tea Taco Seasoning Blend
1/2 Tea Pickle Brine
S&P

Mix this all together, cover, and chill to marry everything together for roughly 4 hours.

Summer Salads & Hashes

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Here is a small collection of the salads I have been enjoying this week.

This is my Cold Spicy Turkey Noodle salad. It’s a riff on the Cold Thai Salad I used to make at the college for the kids. I used one pack of Ramen (set the seasoning pack aside), a 5″ piece of cucumber that I diced up, half a red pepper diced up, a quarter of yellow onion thin sliced, and some turkey breast slices I had sitting in the fridge after cooking it in the air fryer a few days prior that I cut up. I tossed it all with S&P / Italian dressing / a dab of Sambol hot chili sauce. This salad was intended to be served cold but I kind of like it closer to room temp. This might be go-to salad of Summer.

This salad is a veggy crisper drawer cleaner if there ever was one. I started by lightly salting bite size romaine lettuce pieces, and to that I added one Roma tomato diced up, a 5″ cucumber section that was also diced, a bit of red onion I had kicking around, and I cooked up 1/4 C of bulgar to cool down before tossing it all in Italian dressing. I was out of parmesan, otherwise some small chips or some grated cheese would have set this off perfectly. I love to eat this one at room temp, but since I leave it in the fridge at work, cold worked out just fine, too.

Egg salad in delicious dill flavoured marble rye. What’s not to love?! I boiled up the last four eggs I had in boiling water with a small glub of vinegar to help the shells slide right off with ease, and set up a cold ice bath to rapid cool them. While I waited the 14 cook time, I headed out to the herb garden to cut a bunch of chives to wash and cut up fine. The dressing for this was just a few heaping tablespoons of mayo, a teaspoon of Dijon, and loads of fresh cracked pepper followed up by a pinch of salt (to taste). Delicious!

This was a dish I found on Pinterest that looked interesting to me, and hit all of the food in my fridge I wanted to get rid of this week. 🙂 It was a simple pan fry hash starting with half an onion and four garlics minced. From there, I browned and chopped up ground meat (any), added thin slices of green cabbage, small julienne cuts of peppers, and strips of carrot. When everything was cooked and softened up, I poured in two tablespoons of soy sauce along with the ramen season pack I set aside the day before. After a good mix, I added a can of sliced tomatoes near the end. I let it cook down a bit longer so all the flavoured melded into each other before serving it. I liked it but I want to improve or tweak it the next time I make this with different flavours.

Seasonal Bulgur Pilaf

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I love this bulgur salad recipe I found in a grocery store magazine some years back. I renamed it my Harvest Bulgur Salad. I think it’s more apt. I also deviate from the recipe where produce and spices are concerned since I’m not to big on cumin. I just don’t like it as much as everyone tells me I should. Meh.

I can easily adapt for all four months with a simple swap of the sweet potato for other vegetables that make sense at the time, for whatever is in season at that time. I did a summer version using corn that I smoked on the cobb in my backyard. That was so delicious.

For the Spring version, I use apple chunks or dried cranberries. And for winter, I might use pomegranate seeds or something else that catches my eye.

I love to roast the sweet potato chunks in my air fryer after rolling it around in a bit of oil, s&p, and smoked paprika.

I sent this to my husband’s office pot luck where more than half of the staff are hardcore vegetarians, and it went over well. Give it a try in its base form, and tweak it from there. It’s a lovely, filling meal. One I love to make over and over.

Shawarma Salad

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I ordered a Chicken Sharwarma on the Rox from Osmosa’s awhile ago, and they added a salad portion in the corner of the takeout box, so when I moved it over to the plate, I set up the salad first, and then scooped the rice over top and dropped the shawarma overtop as I pulled them off the skewer sticks. I think I some kind of garlicy salad dressing over it, but I can’t recall which one at this point. And of course I dropped some of my beloved pickled red onions on the side. It would be a crime if I didn’t. 🙂

I think this is a very pretty salad plate. I think about it often. And it was good and yummy.

Rice Bowl Upcycling

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So, the other day I made this lovely quasi Tex-Mex rice bowl for our Taco Tuesday dinner. The next night I still had so many materials leftover, plus all of the other ingredients I forgot to prep and add (salsa, cheese, deep fried onions), so I made another better version to make the true taco rice bowl I envisioned all week.

Both looked great, but the second one worked better because it had some moisture and heat the first attempt didn’t. Oh, and I found a squeeze bottle of some cheesy chipotle sauce I bought specifically for this taco meal and had forgot all about, the following Friday in my pantry. D-oh!

So, what was in my taco bowls?

Rice
Lettuce shredded up
Ground Chorizo Meat
Pinto Beans
Homemade Pico de Gallo
Sour Cream
Cilantro Leaves
Lime Juice squeezes
Cheese shredded up
Deep Fried Onions

That’s just a list of what I had on hand prepped to use in them. Your list might be different, and that’s ok. Cooked chicken shred or cooked ground beef also works, as does pickled onions and pickled jalapenos. You can use some Mexican cheese if you have it, as well as some broken up tortilla chips if you like.

Go crazy, or keep it pared down to five items. It’s your bowl, your way.

My BLT Salad Love Affair

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There was a time where all I ate was this salad at work. I got away from it when tomatoes were out of season, but we are getting close to being right back in that saddle, kids. Giddy-up!

It’s a simple salad made using shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, chopped bacon, and grated cheese (when I have it). I top mine with Ranch, but I’ve also used a few other creamy dressings from my fridge as I needed to use them up.

Tilapia & Chopped Corn Salad

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As the last breath of summer days gasp out (for me, at least), I’m still obsessed with my corn salad. Today I made what might be the last one of the season (we’ll see), and I paired it with some delicate tilapia white fish. Perfectly seasoned and cooked, it flaked into lovely chunks easily before I tossed it with my beloved chopped corn salad for a nice summer lunch with the husband.

I swear, this is going to be the last meal I request on my deathbed. 🙂

Bacon Corn Salad

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This is some bbq chicken, peppers and corn salad I made a few weeks. It was delicious. I can’t stop making each of these things. But that corn salad…? I couldn’t not put bacon in it, so that’s what I did. 🙂 (See below pix for that version.)

Grilled Bacon Corn Salad:
2-3 Bacon Strips, 1/2″ cuts
2 Smoked corn cobbs in the husks, cooled enough to hold
1/4 Red Onion (can be raw or pickled – I use what I have on hand)
1 Jalapeno, seeded, fine diced
1/4 Smoked Sweet Pepper, fine diced
2 tbsp BBQ Dry Rub (of choice)

3-4 tbsp Italian Dressing
1 small bunch Parsley, chopped
Parm grated or Queso crumbled

In a pan or on a griddle, heat up bit of oil and lay the bacon over it to render out the fat. Add the veg and shuffle it around so nothing sticks to the surface and it gets cooked evenly. Add the dry rub and keep cooking the mix until the bacon gets crispy and the veg softens, about 5-8 mins.

Off the heat, dump it into a big bowl and roll it around with the dressing and parsley. Plate with the cheese of choice on top. Serve room temp or warm.

If making ahead of time, lay the corn salad in one even layer on a big sheet pan to rapid cool for up to 20 mins before storing in the fridge.