Toss together a restaurant-style Italian Salad at home in just 10 minutes with this easy recipe! Keep it simple and serve it as a side dish, or customize it with all of your favorite toppings to make an epic dinner salad. This traditional Italian salad is served with homemade Italian salad dressing, and topped with juicy tomatoes, crunchy croutons and plenty of parmesan cheese!
Whisk the red wine vinegar, lemon juice, dijon mustard, honey, Italian seasoning, salt, and black pepper in a small mixing bowl.
Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking the oil in with the other ingredients until combined.
Italian Salad
Add the chopped romaine lettuce to a large bowl with the red onion, sliced tomatoes, pepperoncinis, black olives, and Italian dressing, toss to combine everything.
Top the salad with parmesan cheese, croutons, and dried oregano, serve immediately.
Notes
To add protein to the salad, like turkey, grilled chicken or chickpeas, refer to the blog post above for instructions and recommendations.
This recipe will serve 2-4 people as an entree, depending on how much protein (if any) is added to the salad. The salad can also be served as a side dish or appetizer for 4-6 people.
The salad dressing can be made up to 7 days in advance and stored in the fridge until you’re ready to make the salad. You can mix it up and store it easily by adding all of the ingredients to a mason jar. Place the lid on top, shake it up and store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.
I only recommend making as much salad as you plan to eat at that time. Once the salad has been tossed with the dressing, it can not be saved and eaten later, as the salad will become soggy.
To make this recipe gluten free, simply omit the croutons on top of the salad, or use gluten-free croutons.