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This balsamic salad is a quick and easy side dish! In just 10 minutes you have a healthy accompaniment to any meal.

Simplest Green Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette | A Couple Cooks

After posting our popular tomato artichoke soup, I mentioned that it might be helpful to serve this soup alongside something with added protein. So we’ve created that salad for you: a simple balsamic salad!

Why we love this recipe: This simple pile of greens stars our favorite balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It’s so delicious and has been receiving rave reviews for years. Throw out all your old salad dressing bottles and use this recipe!

Tips for this simple balsamic salad

A few notes about building this lovely balsamic salad:

  • Make your own vinaigrette. Use our balsamic vinaigrette or swap in this basic salad dressing. Our rule for making vinaigrette is 1 part acid (vinegar or citrus juice) to 3 parts oil (olive or grapeseed). Then add salt, pepper, and any add-ins you’d like, like chopped shallots or minced garlic, Dijon mustard, or minced herbs, and whisk to combine. There are endless possibilities!
  • Use fresh greens, local if possible. Use any mix of greens you’d like. Our local farmer’s market has local greens year round, which we like to take advantage of when we can.
  • Add crunchy elements for contrasts of flavor and texture. We like to add something crunchy like pecans, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, or pepitas (pumpkin seeds). Amp up the flavor by toasting the nuts in a dry skillet for a few minutes until they are browned and fragrant.
  • Mix in cheese or fruit for a final touch. A flavorful cheese is a great counterpoint: we love feta, sharp cheddar, and goat cheese. You can also add a sweet component like dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, apricots) or fresh fruit (apples, pears, strawberries).

What are your favorite salad combinations? We’d love to hear.

More green salad recipes 

Want to make more great salads? Here are some of our top green salad recipes:

Dietary notes

This mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette is vegetarian and gluten-free. For vegan, plant-based and dairy-free, omit the cheese crumbles.

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Simple Balsamic Salad

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This balsamic salad is a quick and easy side dish! In just 10 minutes you have a healthy accompaniment to any meal.

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 0 minutes
  • Total Time: 10 minutes
  • Yield: 4 1x
  • Category: Salad
  • Method: Raw
  • Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale

For the balsamic vinaigrette

  • 2 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or honey)
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 tablespoons olive oil

For the salad

  • 8 cups salad greens
  • ¼ cup dried cherries (or cranberries)
  • ¼ cup cheese crumbles (feta, goat, or gorgonzola)
  • ¼ cup slivered almonds (or walnuts, pecans, or pistachios)

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, and salt until fully combined. Gradually whisk in the olive oil, adding 1 tablespoon at a time and whisking until it incorporates, until an emulsion forms. Taste and adjust sweetness as desired. Serve immediately or store refrigerated and bring to room temperature before serving (keeps at least 2 weeks).
  2. Dress 8 cups salad greens with the desired amount of dressing; reserve the rest for future use.
  3. On each plate, place 2 cups salad greens and sprinkle with dried fruit, cheese crumbles, and nuts.

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About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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20 Comments

  1. Elisa Julia says:

    I made this last night for my wife and I, and we are hooked! Such a lovely, simply salad that surely isn’t lacking any flavor whatsoever!!
    We will be eating this same salad tonight ?

    1. Alex Overhiser says:

      So glad you loved it! :)

  2. Martha says:

    Your basic rule is 1:1 acid and oil but this recipe is 1:3. Please clarify. Thanks!

    1. Sonja says:

      You are correct: this was a typo in the body of the post and this has been fixed! Thanks for your feedback!

  3. Simon says:

    How much in ml is 1/4 cup?






    1. Sonja says:

      Good question: 60 ml!

  4. sylvie says:

    It’s much more economical, tasty and healthy to make salad dressing on our own, per sure!
    Have you already tried to add roquefort cheese (it’s a kind of blue cheese), it really tastes great!
    I love both roquefort and goat cheese in mixed salad.

  5. Erum@www.TotalSalads.com says:

    That looks great! I love a good vinaigrette with a green salad. The combos are endless, but the one oil I always stick with is using extra virgin olive oil.

  6. Lety says:

    So you dress the greens before you add the complements! I always mix everything in a bowl and then dress the salad, and I always end up with all the goodies in the bottom of the bowl! Next time I will dress the greens before I add everything else! Thanks!

  7. Brian @ Kitchen Domination says:

    Do you have a preferred method for tossing dressing and salad together to achieve an evenly dressed meal?

    1. Teri Davis says:

      Really confused about the ratio. One email said it was fixed to 1:1 but I still see 1:3 vinegar to oil ! Which is it, ?. Love you stuff

      1. Sonja Overhiser says:

        The 1:3 vinegar to oil ratio is correct! Can you tell me where you saw that it said 1:1? We can’t find it in this post!

  8. dani | theloveofvanilla says:

    you DO make friends with salad :) i love a good green salad but always over dress it

  9. Terry Covington says:

    I have been meaning for a long time to learn to make my own salad dressings. I looked at the ones on your site, and they all sound delicious, and I also remember my mother using the 1:1 ratio of oil to vinegar. I did have a question. I have read that if you mix raw garlic with oil it will only keep in the refrigerator safely for about 3 days (which is apparently why commercial dressings use dehydrated garlic). Can you address that here, please? I want to be sure that I am making appropriate amounts of dressing and storing them safely. Thank you!

    1. Alex says:

      Hi! We generally store vinaigrettes for a few weeks in the fridge if they don’t have fresh ingredients, however if they have fresh herbs or garlic we usually them up immediately. Since it’s so easy, we generally only make a small amount and use it quickly.

      As far as safety, I believe that the acid from the vinegar would reduce the chance of any foodborne bacteria growing in the fridge.

      Hope you enjoy!

      1. Terry Covington says:

        Thank you so much for the additional information!

  10. Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar says:

    You can never go wrong with a simple salad like this. So pretty!

  11. Nina at FocusedonFit.com says:

    This looks amazing and so simple. I make a salad just like this but add chopped apples too…my husband will never eat fruit unless I include it in a recipe! Thanks for sharing!

  12. Susan says:

    I love that you use the 1:1 vinegar:oil ratio – that’s how my mother always did it. I think that kind of dressing is way more appetizing than the ones with ridiculously large (IMO) amounts of oil. My normal salad dressing is just plain good quality balsamic vinegar. My favorite vinaigrette from the past used garlic and basil for seasoning. I would still do that except I am too lazy mostly to make salad dressing. The one exception to that is that I figured out how to make a mole salad dressing that I saw demonstrated in a culinary theater in Cancun (the chef figured out how to do it so it’s a cold dressing that doesn’t wilt the salad). I love the combination of ingredients for your salad. I’ll have to try that, since it’s way more interesting than the basic salads I usually make.

  13. Mary Ann says:

    Yum! I like the reminder to add herbs, it really adds so much! My fave combo is mixed greens with goat cheese, pickled beets (I pickle my own), and hazelnuts with a raspberry vinaigrette.

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