House Salad

At a glance

What stands out: This restaurant style recipe makes a straightforward side salad that goes with almost any main course. Feel free to customize it any way you like!

How long it takes: 20 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: salad bowl or mixing bowl
Servings: 4

There are salads that are meals, like BBQ chicken salad, and then there are salads that are meant as sides or starters. This house salad is the latter.

Our house salad recipe is dressed up with fresh veggies, croutons, and cheese to add color, texture, and a little more substance to the mix. You could compare it to the restaurant salad that comes out before your steak dinner or that accompanies your burger when you ask to skip the fries.

But don’t wait until you go to a restaurant. You can make a house house salad at home!

Classic House Salad

A goes-with-everything recipe. From Instant Pot pork chops to grilled salmon, you can serve this house salad with anything. Use it in the same ways restaurants do: to round out a meal, add color (and nutrition) to your plate, or offer a contrast to a heavier dish like skillet lasagna or chicken spaghetti. We like to serve this simple house salad with spicier meats, too, like blackened chicken or spicy garlic shrimp.

Simple and speedy to prepare. We often throw together a salad—and lately, this house salad—when we need a straightforward side to add to our dinner. It’s one less thing that we have to cook! It’s especially nice during warm summer months.

Totally customizable. Don’t like cheese? Not a fan of croutons? No problem! You can easily omit or substitute any ingredients to make this your house salad. Any of your favorite salad dressings can be used (try DIY Catalina dressing!) but we do highly recommend this from-scratch balsamic vinaigrette.

A straightforward way to work some extra veggies into your day. Does anyone else feel like even if you love vegetables, it’s impossible to get the recommended servings in a day? We can’t graze on lettuce all day long! This simple salad adds another serving or two of veggies to your meal (and you’ll enjoy every bite!).

What goes in

For the Salad:

• Mixed Salad Greens: A classic house salad is made with crisp lettuce, usually romaine or iceberg. Feel free to experiment with other greens or lettuce mixtures, such as green or red leaf lettuce, baby spinach, arugula, and so on.
• Cherry or Grape Tomatoes: These colorful bite-sized tomatoes add a burst of juicy flavor to the salad. If you have regular tomatoes, try to squeeze out the juicy pulp and seeds as you dice them.
• Cucumbers: Sliced cucumbers add a nice crisp texture and refreshing flavor. We prefer the thin-skinned varieties such as hothouse, English, or Persian cucumbers. The small salad cucumbers are reliable, too. If you buy a waxy, thick-skinned cucumber, be sure to peel it first.
• Red Onion: Slice the onion thinly so it gives your salad flavor without completely overpowering everything else. To lighten up the flavor of onions, we usually soak the sliced onion in ice water for 10 minutes. Drain well and pat dry before adding to the salad.
• Carrot: You can save time by buying grated or julienned carrots; however, whole carrots that you julienne yourself have more flavor.
• Croutons: we love making air fryer croutons or these from-scratch croutons.
• Shredded Cheddar Cheese: For a standby flavor, shred it yourself. We recommend a sharp or aged cheddar but other types of cheese work well, too.

For the Dressing:

• Olive Oil: A good extra-virgin olive oil will shine here.
• Balsamic Vinegar: And so will a good vinegar! We like to use an aged balsamic vinegar that’s syrupy and sweet.
• Honey: This balances the acidity of the house salad dressing.
• Dijon Mustard: Mustard not only adds flavor, it also emulsifies the dressing (helps the vinegar and oil blend together).
• Garlic: You can use finely minced or pressed garlic cloves or swap in ½ teaspoon of garlic powder.
• Kosher Salt and Ground Black Pepper: we like freshly ground black pepper which is much more flavorful.

How it comes together

Prep. Unless you buy pre-washed salad greens, be sure to wash and dry the greens well before assembling your salad. The quickest way to ruin a house salad is with soggy wet greens so be sure to dry, dry, dry! A salad spinner is essential.

Wash and cut up the carrots, cucumber, tomato, and onion. Shred the cheese. Make the from-scratch croutons.

Combine salad ingredients. In a large mixing bowl or salad bowl, gently toss together the greens, carrots, cucumber, onion, and tomatoes.

Make the dressing. Whisk together all of the dressing ingredients. (Or place them in a jar and shake to emulsify.)

Combine. When you’re ready to serve the salad, add the dressing and toss to coat the greens with the dressing. Garnish with the croutons and cheese. If you prefer, plate individual salads and top each one with croutons and cheese.

Ways to change it

• Swap out the cheese. Gouda, gruyere, Dubliner, Parmesan, feta, or BellaVitano are also rich in this salad.
• Use another dressing. We love this salad with Italian dressing (or creamy Italian dressing), ranch, maple black pepper dressing, white wine vinaigrette, or red wine vinaigrette. It’s great with blue cheese dressing (if you love blue cheese, be sure to try our wedge salad recipe, too).
• Switch up the ingredients. Try kalamata olives, different greens, or other vegetables (sliced mushrooms, julienned red bell peppers, shallots instead of red onion, etc). You can also add hard-boiled eggs or bacon bits.
• Make it a main dish. To make a main dish salad, add a cooked protein such as grilled balsamic chicken, grilled salmon, crispy tofu, or shrimp. We also love crispy baked chicken tenders on this salad.

Ways to serve it

• Meat: Air fryer pork tenderloin, Instant Pot chicken thighs, and garlic butter steak bites all pair well with this salad. It provides a nice contrast with creamy chicken pasta, too.
• Pasta: Serve your house salad as a side for fresh tomato pasta.
• Soup: A warm bowl of French onion soup makes a reliable pairing with this crisp salad.
• Sandwiches: Whether you prefer an air fryer grilled cheese sandwich or hearty meatball subs, a house salad is an excellent addition to any sandwich.
• Quiche: Serve this salad alongside crustless quiche for a savory brunch option.

Make Ahead & Storage

You can toss the vegetables and mix the dressing in advance. Add the dressing to the salad when you’re just about ready to serve it. To store:

• Place the mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables in an airtight container and store them in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
• Keep the croutons in a container at room temperature and refrigerate the cheese separately in another container to maintain their texture.
• Store from-scratch dressing in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to one week.
• Before serving, re-toss your salad ingredients, and add the dressing, croutons, and cheese.

If you have leftover salad that’s already been dressed, it’s best to eat it within a few hours, as the dressing will cause the greens to become soggy.

• Yield: 4 servings
• Prep: 20 minutes
• Total: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the Salad:

• 6 cups mixed salad greens
• 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 cucumber, sliced (such as hothouse, English, or Persian cucumber)
• ¼ red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, julienned
• 2 cups croutons
• ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese (or another cheese of your choice)

For the Dressing:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons honey
• ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 small clove garlic, minced (or ½ teaspoon garlic powder)
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
• ⅕ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper, or to taste

Method

1. In a large bowl, combine salad greens, tomatoes, cucumber, sliced red onion, and carrot.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, garlic, salt, and pepper to taste.
3. Immediately before serving, drizzle the homemade dressing over the salad and toss to coat the ingredients evenly. Add croutons and cheese and serve.

Notes

Other dressings may be used. Try Italian dressing, creamy Italian dressing, ranch dressing, Catalina (French) dressing, maple black pepper dressing, white wine vinaigrette, or red wine vinaigrette.

For an elevated salad, try using from-scratch croutons.

Make it your own. This is a basic salad and it’s straightforward to add additional ingredients to make it your own custom “house salad.” Try kalamata olives, different varieties of cheese, or different vegetables (sliced mushrooms, julienned red bell peppers, etc).

Main dish salad : Add a cooked protein such as grilled chicken, grilled salmon, crispy tofu, or grilled shrimp. Boiled eggs or bacon bits are good, too.