Marinated Vegetable Salad – let’s talk about it! How I’m loving the lettuce-less-ness of it. How it’s not only bright, beautiful, and colorful, but crazy-healthy too. How it’s make-ahead! Yep, chop all your favorite vegetables before going to bed then toss with a simple homemade vinaigrette, refrigerate, and serve the next day. How it’s sugar free. I love a good sweet and savory combo as much as the next gal, but when it comes to fresh vegetables? I gotta go savory. Many marinated vegetable salad recipes call for tossing the vegetables in a dressing that includes equal parts sugar and vinegar, but I just can’t get down with sweet cauliflower when I know how delicious it can be tossed in a tart and snappy dressing instead!
Watch How to Make It!
Raw Vegetable Salad
Now, I’ve chosen to highlight my favorite raw vegetables in this Marinated Vegetable Salad including cherry tomatoes, cucumber, cauliflower, carrots, and bell pepper, but you could swap in any vegetables you happen to love and/or have growing in your garden. Raw zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, sweet onion, celery, and/or corn would all make excellent additions to this easy, healthy dish.
Start by chopping up a big bowl o’ summer vegetables. Like I said, the variety is totally up to you as long as it adds up to roughly 10 cups (it’s a big salad!)
I use 2 cups each cauliflower florets (about 1/2 medium-sized head,) carrots (roughly 4 medium carrots,) and cherry tomatoes (a 10oz package.)
Plus 1 cucumber that I seeded before chopping so the dressing wouldn’t get watery (use an English cucumber if you don’t want to scrape out the seeds,) plus 1 chopped bell pepper. I chose yellow for the beautiful color, but it’s totally up to you!
Last step is to drizzle on the super tart vinaigrette, which contains:
Extra virgin olive oil Red wine vinegar Minced shallots Dijon mustard Italian seasoning Minced garlic cloves Salt Pepper
Shake the ingredients together in a jar or whisk in a bowl. Pour 3/4 of the vinaigrette over the vegetables then toss and stash in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 4 hours or up to overnight — it just gets better as it sits. FYI this vinaigrette is very tart, which I happen to love. If it’s a little too tart for you, add more oil and/or honey to taste.
Just before serving, toss with the remaining vinaigrette then season with salt and pepper and you’ve got yourself an easy, healthy, fresh side dish that’s perfect for any day or occasion. Enjoy!
More Fresh and Healthy Salad Recipes
Fruit Salad Recipe for a Crowd Cucumber and Tomato Salad Jennifer Aniston Salad Chickpea Chicken Salad Italian Chickpea Salad Everyday Kale Salad Greek Chickpea Salad
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