Salads and Salad Dressings

Dill Roasted Salmon Salad Kit

March 6, 2018 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Today we have a gift idea!

A gift idea that was gifted to us once, in fact. Once, long ago, while I was pregnant with Beck, Jay broke his leg in three places on the first day of vacation. It was horrendous, and he still is dealing with pain from the injury and planning to have a third surgery to do some more correcting of what can only be described as a crappy first attempt at fixing him.

In those early weeks of healing, one of my yoga students at the Y brought this meal to me one day at the gym. It was SO good and one of the most thoughtful things she could have done. The end result was a salmon salad with orzo, but she packaged everything separately and cooked the components perfectly so that the salad was great cold and we could mix and match to make plates exactly the way we wanted. I created a version and love this idea for a gift for someone who needs it, but it's also great to prep on the weekend and have for lunches and dinners all week. The salmon DOES get slightly fishy when eaten cold, so you could definitely cook the salmon right at the last minute or even sub chicken, but I don't mind the cold salmon flavor at all.

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Simple Kale Salad with Caesar Croutons and Roasted Tomatoes

February 26, 2018 by Lindsay 3 Comments

Welcome to the salad that makes my dreams come true via buttery bread cubes on top of a superfood.

This salad. It's definitely a new favorite, and the simplicity of the salad itself is one of the reasons I love it so much. I love salads that are dressed super simply to make way for really good toppings, and this is exactly that type of thing. The "dressing" is lemon juice and olive oil, full stop, but just wait for the croutons. I didn't want to do a kale Caesar because, while delicious, I feel like that's been done a lot. Instead, I wanted more of a make-ahead salad that just gets thrown together at the last minute.

Enter: Caesar croutons. They're made in a skillet with anchovy butter, which gives a promise-not-fishy super distinctive Caesar flavor. The croutons get all crispy in the butter with garlic and salt and pepper, and then right at the last minute we add parmesan which fries on the outside of the croutons and OMG. So you see why we don't need much in the way of dressing.

Roasted tomatoes add a sweet + warm element, and we have ourselves a salad. The tomatoes and croutons can be made in advance and served cold or at room temperature, so the salad can be done in five minutes once those two things are done. I love this as a side salad with spaghetti or pizza, but throw a fried egg or some protein on top of this and WHAT a delicious meal. Sliced rare steak sounds particularly delicious with these flavors.

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Black Bean Salsa with Avocado

September 13, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Delicious black bean salad with corn and avocado! This recipe can be used as black bean salsa for scooping with chips or black bean salad to serve as a side dish or over salad greens for a yummy lunch or main dish salad dinner. This black bean salsa is vegan and gluten free and can be made in advance - just stir in the avocado right at the end.

Because snacks.

Jay, it should be said, was very misleading about how much he liked sports when we were dating. Looking back, I could have SWORN that he didn't care a ton, was all hippie and cool, cared about random bands and comedians and thought that too much money was injected into sports. He loved golf, but that was different.

Love is blind, people, love is blind.

Between Fantasy Football/NFL and college, the football time of year has us talking about football daily and watching it several times per week, mind you Jay will claim up and down that he hardly watches it and "most guys like watch so much more, we don't even have CABLE!" The last part is true, we cancelled cable because Jay begged me to.

To get around the sportswatchingthatwedontreallycareabout, I handle The Foods. This is a definitely vegan and gluten free Mexican appetizer, filled with tons of wholesome ingredients and you are definitely not required to eat it with chips. I call it a salsa because it's GREAT with chips, but it's also great cold over rice, as a black bean salad side dish for tacos or burritos, or over greens as a salad. Maybe some feta or sharp cheddar on top, I don't know.

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Salted Watermelon Salad with Cayenne and Mint

August 16, 2017 by Lindsay 1 Comment

This was stolen directly from my neighbor Leah, who hosted a fabulous Memorial Day party for a bunch of people on our street this year.

Spicy watermelon. I mean.

It's ridiculously simple, which honestly is how I think all watermelon dishes should be. Throw some feta on there every once in awhile, sure, but watermelon is so wonderful on its own, especially this time of year when it's actually in season, but mainly a few teeny flavors over the most perfect summer fruit is all I need.

I know some people are iffy about salt on fruit, and I hear you. Sometimes it doesn't work. Here, though, it definitely does. The super sweet melon with just a teeny bit of salt really bring together the spice of the cayenne and the freshness of the mint, and lime zest over the whole thing just feels right. It's one of those perfect 5-minute raw summer dishes that feel fancy, take zero effort, and taste amazing.

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Tzatziki Pasta Salad

August 8, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Gahhhh I just can't stop with the fresh summer flavors. They're too good, you know? In this case we're loving on cucumbers - our yard went bonkers with them pretty early in the summer and, while the plants are a little dry and sad now, we're still getting a few per week and loving it. Beck has discovered DIP! and loves to basically eat sour cream while holding a cucumber, which I'm pretty sure counts as a vegetable, right?

I made this salad a few weeks ago for our neighborhood block party, and am super obsessed with the flavor combination. I love that so many cultures have a yogurt-based dip to serve with spicy or warmer flavors, and if it includes feta I'm a thousand percent in. The flavors here are pretty classic tzatziki with let's say a Persian flair - mint and cumin to add extra flavor to the dish. I decided to make the flavors into a pasta salad because I love a fancy-ish pasta salad at a potluck and everyone loves pasta, right?

Jay just told me about a low carb diet he was reading about where not eating this stuff will cure cancer and I'm thinking...how much do I care about that? He's probably not wrong, but pasta feels so right.

So we make it for a potluck, we only have a little bit, and we use yogurt and olive oil in the dressing because healthy fats.

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Raw Corn and Tomato Salad

August 7, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Raw and vegan. Because vegan feels easier in the summer, to me at least.

Hey, hi! Hope your weekend was great. We did super low key with farmer's market, lots of walking, eating, photographing food, golf, and wine. It was glorious and prepped me for 3 full weekends of busy we have in front of us. Fun, but still busy.

Anyway!

Whether or not you're a practicing vegan, I hope you're someone who enjoys summer produce as much as I do. I have to admit that I find eating seasonally somewhat boring in the months where lettuce and beets are the only things really locally available, when it's so tempting to go to the store and buy anything you want to eat, even if it doesn't taste that great. In the summer I don't have that problem at all because there are so many amazing fruits and veggies coming straight of the ground all around us.

There is a specific beauty to fresh local corn: It's so good, so much different than the nonsense you can get year round (where is that coming from?), and can end up being sugary sweet, crunchy, and creamy all at once without doing anything to it but cutting it off the cob. I love corn in lots of cooked ways too, but especially enjoy it raw on cobs that are so flavorful and perfect right now. ...

Ginger Lime Cucumber Salad

July 17, 2017 by Lindsay 3 Comments

How's your cucumber plant doing? Mine is fully bonkers. Fully. The number of things we've done with cucumbers in our lunches and dinners (and tbh breakfasts some days) is growing bigger every day, and so far I'm proud to say that we aren't sick of cukes yet because we've made an effort to serve them in lots of different ways. DIY ranch with cucumber sticks is our new "come over for happy hour, I have tons of snacks to get rid of" offering, Greek salads abound, and I'm never above eating an entire cucumber with salt and pepper as a salad.

And this! Marinated cucumbers in a soy-lime vinaigrette with hot peppers mixed in. The sauce is simple and the cucumbers are great after 20 minutes or a night in the fridge, so you can make this ahead of time and serve whenever it's convenient.

Salad is important, and this one is importantly delicious.

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Zaatar Crusted Chicken Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing

July 12, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Because zaatar. And the pickled onions! And Lemon Tahini Dressing, which remains one of the most popular recipes on this website. It makes me smile because it's one of my favorite types of dressing in real life, so I'm so glad you like it too.

The premise here is simple. We need a new entree salad, and we need it to be wonderfully flavorful. Otherwise, entree salads lead to excessive garlic bread on the side. Garlic bread isn't a bad thing, but excessive quantities of it might be. MIGHT. I'm also a fan of anything that feels fried but isn't fried, which is the case with the spice-covered chicken.

Do you know about zaatar? It's a Middle Eastern Spice blend with sumac, sesame seeds, cumin, and other spices based on who makes it. I find it at our local Middle Eastern grocery, but bigger grocery stores carry it in the spice aisle or international foods section. If you haven't tried it before I'd highly recommend it for a new twist on a great summer salad.

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Crab Macaroni Salad

June 29, 2017 by Lindsay 2 Comments

Is the grossest thing ever to you? Please say no, I love it so much.

I don't know how this came about, but Jay and I were...eating sushi? wandering the grocery store? something inspiring like that I'm sure, and we got to talking about how we love imitation crab. I KNOW. So not real food, but we both enjoy it, and clearly we aren't the only ones, given the popularity of California rolls. Krab makes appearances in a few creamy southern potluck-esque dishes like this macaroni salad. Since we've been active and jungly and eating organically for a week in Belize I figured what BETTER time than to share a creamy pasta salad recipe?

Eye roll, I know.

Speaking of being back from Belize, we are so all over the place. Interviewing people and planning for the remodel, which will start in about 3 months and be done approximately never. All of the laundry because everything smells like river. Reconnecting with Beck. Huge computer issues that took literally two whole days and is still not solved. Planning for some new writing projects (holidays!). Attempting to get back into work without becoming totally bummed that vacation is over. And, on top of that, we're vaguely jet lagged which means we are zombies in the morning but all kinds of youthful at night so we've been bingeing Schitt's Creek which OMG PLEASE DO NOT DELAY WATCHING THIS. It is just so good.

All that to say, we really need some pasta. And so do you! 4th of July begs for it, no joke.

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Broccoli Cauliflower Salad with Greek Yogurt and Bacon

June 8, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Because obviously bacon.

I'm in full summertime side dish swing right now, do you do that? Dinners are random leftovers from parties with some grilled chicken and a side salad, done and done. I'm always looking for new + healthyish side dishes because potato salad from the grocery store is great BUT, you know? You know. The but(t) gets big sometimes. Heh. My grandmother makes a version of this salad and brings it to family functions a few times per year, and we all love it. She switches up the nuts she uses, whether or not there is bacon in it, etc, but the base is the same: broccoli, cauliflower, onion, and a creamy-but-light Greek yogurt dressing.

The yogurt is cut with mayo for flavor, so you can definitely use fat free yogurt or anything else you have around - even regular yogurt! The broccoli and cauliflower are totally raw so you can even make this the night before so the veg starts to soften somewhat, or you can make it right before you serve. It's delicious even after a few days in the fridge!

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Marinated Zucchini and White Beans with Rosemary + Sausage

May 30, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

WHAT did you do this weekend? I ate all of the foods. It was glorious and today I'm craving raw veggies, which is rare.

Lighter stuff, you know? Just for like a day, nothing insane. Is it fine if I present to you a light recipe topped with sausage?

I gotta be me, after all.

Depending on the ingredients you use here (check labels, etc), this is an accidentally gluten- and dairy-free recipe, which DEFINITELY makes it a health food. I've seen several recipes for marinated beans around the internet, and I'm so excited about all of them. White beans absorb flavor pretty quickly and you're left with the creamy beans, tangy dressing, and sharp + crunchy vegetables. You could absolutely make this year-round as well since dried rosemary works just as well as fresh.

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Deconstructed Curry Chicken Salad + Roasted Grapes

April 17, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Jay's idea! As all the good ones are, he'll tell you.

I don't know exactly where this idea came from, but it continues my excessive use of yellow curry this year, which I'm 1,000% ok with. I can't stop finding new favorite uses for it. This salad is SO good, super filling but without the heavy feel of a chicken salad with a mayo base, love those though I do. INSTEAD we have my new fav way to cook chicken. Thighs, crisped in a pan. Then we shred the meat and cook it again in the same pan so we end up with tons of crispy edges. There is butter involved but it's skinless chicken so balance, you know?

Besides your new favorite chicken we have black pepper roasted grapes, spiced pecans, and a super simple + flavorful creamy dressing with only a teensy bit of mayo.

Honestly, there are a few components in the dish and it does take some time. BUT, if you roast the nuts and the grapes at the same time while you make the dressing and chicken this salad can be ready in way under and hour. You can also make everything but the chicken in advance and toss it all together for dinner.

No excuses!

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Clementine Mustard Vinaigrette

January 17, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

A yummy orange mustard vinaigrette made in the blender using seedless clementines! This is a thick and flavorful dressing made almost creamy without any dairy. It's also delicious as a chicken or shrimp marinade for grilling.

We are having a very serious citrus moment in our house. But everyone is, right? It's citrus SEASON, after all! It's kind of hard to remember to eat seasonally with everything being available all the time, but I find that when we do eat seasonally the produce tastes SO much better, and is usually cheaper. So. Everyone wins!

We cut up some clementine wedges into little bits for Beck a few weeks ago, and holy hell, you'd have thought I offered her a glimpse of Joseph Smith's golden tablets. There was yelling, and clapping, and inhaling....it went really well. Now every time we walk by the bowl of clementines in our house there is much cooing and pointing and squealing, which probably makes the citrus feel really good about itself, you know?

I used 2 clementines to whiz up a salad dressing in our blender, and it turned out gloriously. Not too citrusy like if you were to use concentrated juice, not too sweet at all, just wonderfully orange-ish and slightly bitter and spicy from the mustard.

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Jalapeno Ranch {chuy's copycat}

August 24, 2016 by Lindsay 4 Comments

FINALLY YOU GUYS YES.

I've replicated something from a chain restaurant that tons of other people have also replicated on the internet!

It's inspired, is my point.

Ok so what's your stance on chain restaurants? We are kind of...in the middle. Some fast food is fine (Subway + Chick fil A), some medium fast (Panera duh), and then we kind of have a gap where we are really snobby (no Applebees ever no no no no) and then there are some ...higher end? chains that we like. That I like. Like Chuy's! The Mexican joint that is really consistent and delicious and everything always tastes the same as last time but it's FRESH and reliable if you need to eat in one while travelling for work. Family rules for chain restaurant eating, right there.

Another reason I'm super into Chuy's is that there is a local delivery service that will bring it to. your. door, and we used it a ton when Beck was super teeny, so I have these kind of happy far-away memories of Chuy's and my tiny baby.

The best part about Chuy's, as many of you know, is their mother effing Jalapeno Ranch. Or Jalapeno Dip. Or Creamy Jalapeno Dip? It's listed different places as different things. This is a salad dressing that you can order with your chips + salsa or over a burrito or as an addition to any other part of your meal. We always get it with our chips and then usually eat salads for our meal with this dressing on top.

THEN it turns out that the best thing to come out of our garden this year (after basil, which is like a tree) was jalapenos. We have a gazillion, and I think they're going to keep on keepin' on for a little while longer if the caterpillars will leave them alone. We've been putting jalapenos in everything, multiple times per day, and finally I was all CHUY'S WHY HAVEN'T WE MADE THE DIP YET. So I did. And we ate it. And it was SO good.

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Roasted Tomato Succotash with Okra

August 21, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Hellz to the yes. It's the most basic of all the basic blogger intros. "We really love our small town and try to eat local and seasonally whenever we can."

Bullshit. Let's be real. Some people rock that narrative so well, and we are just not those people. We REALLY love our small town and we happen to have a great farmer's market that goes from May to October on Saturdays. But mainly we like going there because it's a 30 minute walk which feels like exercise and then after we shop we can eat and daydrink. Also I love Aldi and Trader Joe's, so really we try to eat affordably as we can. Because then we can eat a lot.

But this happens to be a local and seasonally-inspired recipe! That is delicious and healthy and has bacon in it, so really we all win. Succotash is kind of a warm salad with lima beans usually as the main ingredient, and here we have added corn and okra and tomatoes and all the bacon and fresh herbs your little heart desires. It's great alone as a meal, or as a side dish, or under grilled chicken or fish - all of the things.

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Greek Yogurt Dill Caesar Pasta Salad

August 3, 2016 by Lindsay 1 Comment

WITH ALMONDS AND CHICKEN WITH ALMONDS AND CHICKEN.

Guys. I had the best problem ever this morning when I sat down to write this.

I had too many good recipes to write about that I could hardly decide.

What a great time to be alive, right? I feel like I'm in a quasi-groove of my new job and my old jobs and the blog and the baby and being gentle with myself for not being able to DO ALL THE THINGS, and it's a good problem to have, having tons of yummy food to share. A bad problem is that WordPress took away the red squiggly line and now I don't know when I spell things wrong? Can someone tell me how to turn that back on? Thanks.

And so this salad. It's a total feel-good, easy-peasy, use-what-you-have, summer salad. The dressing MAKES it, and the rest of it is just leftovers, seriously. Any salad stuff you have, leftover pasta, leftover chicken, some almonds for crunch, and delectable dressing. The yogurt + dill is decidedly summer, which means you have a month or so left to make this and it not feel weird.

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Cold Sesame Noodle Salad

May 24, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

IT'S ANOTHER LEFTOVER RECIPE!

What is it about the laws of the universe that are super duper intent on NEVER allowing you to make the correct amount of pasta to sauce? It's a thing, right?

So this is what you do: since you know this is going to be happening, err on the side of extra pasta, not extra sauce. Then you make this cold salad all summer long with your extra noodles. The dressing is what makes it, and you can use any veggies or pasta type that you like. Toss it all together, lunches for days.

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Easy Low Carb Taco Salad

May 16, 2016 by Lindsay 3 Comments

Wouldn't it have been so great if I had thought of this before Cinco De Mayo? Like, if I could use my brain to make things on this blog relevant, current, and topical?

But, no, this came to me a week after the fact. Sorry about that. We are eating slightly fewer carbs recently, not really for any particular purpose but more so because it's the time of the year where produce is getting GREAT so we are eating a lot more fruits and veggies in general. I love meat, and we can't have 4 veggies, meat, and a carb at every meal just due to the dishes never getting done, so carbs have been falling by the wayside on some meals. I know that other people prefer to eat low carb lots of the time, so this is a perfect meal for anyone trying to do that OR just wanting to enjoy spring lettuces to their fullest.

The beef is similar to my no-packet beef tacos without the addition of extra liquid before the beef goes on the salad. The dressing is creamy the ingredients are crunchy, there is cheese....it's basically perfect.

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Leftover Hummus Pasta Salad {vegetarian}

April 12, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Or fresh hummus, whatever. But mainly, leftovers! I think that hummus is just one of those things born to be delicious and then languish in the fridge until it finally molds and you give it to the dog, amirite? For us at least it's always a party staple, but we never really eat it in the day-to-day. I had some leftover hummus recently and made 2 new recipes from it because I just don't think I'm in the only one who has this leftover hummus issue.

Indulge me, will you? Up first is this super simple creamy-yet-healthy pasta salad. It's a pretty standard version with any mix-ins you'd like, but the hummus flavor instead of a regular oil + vinegar or mayo base is really special. Plus, hummus in the dressing means that there is protein coating your pasta, which makes it a perfect meat-free meal.

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Spanish Tuna Salad + Avocado

April 5, 2016 by Lindsay 2 Comments

I'm a huge Spanish food person. One of my favorite restaurants ever in the world is this Spanish tapas place in Asheville, and I just think that Spanish food is so accessible and delicious without being difficult or fancy.

I'm difficult (name that movie), but really not fancy at all.

My bff Heather is into Spanish food too, so much so that for my birthday a few weeks ago she had a whole tapas spread for a happy hour she threw for me. It was delicious, and while it was nice to have my friends there, the food was so good that I might have preferred to be alone with the food. It sounds sad, but in my mind its not.

One of the things Heather made that night was this tuna salad, full of veggies and creamy from avocado instead of mayo. It was really delicious, and I made it at home within a week of having it at her house. I've eaten it a few ways now, with bread or crackers, straight from the bowl, over greens for a salad...there is NO wrong way to eat this, and it's definitely worthy of telling everyone else to go away so you can eat in peace.

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Salads and Salad Dressings

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