Crunchy Chopped Salad with Creamy Kefir “Ranch” Dressing
Crunchy salad + creamy dressing. Perfect for summer dinners!
Don’t you love a fresh, crisp chopped salad?
This salad gathers colorful, crunchy veggies on a bed of crisp romaine hearts and cabbage. Everything is chopped up into what I like to call a “confetti chop” - small enough so you can scoop this salad up with a spoon instead of a fork.
This chopped salad is filled with familiar and easy-to-love veggies, like snap peas, carrots and red bell pepper. The dressing is tangy and creamy and sure to please Ranch lovers.
You can add chicken or salmon or potatoes or croutons to make this a main course salad. It’s also a fantastic side salad, especially on warm summer nights.
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The dressing is a cinch to whisk together. Kefir adds the tangy acidity usually provided by buttermilk. Mayo, chopped dill and garlic add flavor. This simple dressing tastes a lot like Ranch, without all the preservatives.
Why kefir? I find it really hard to use up an entire quart of buttermilk, which is usually the liquid added to homemade Ranch dressing. Kefir, on the other hand, I can add to smoothies or drink straight from the bottle for a jolt of probiotics. It’s a healthy ingredient I like to have in my fridge, especially because it stays fresh for weeks. Which means you can whip up batches of kefir dressing several times over the course of a month.
I use fresh dill in this recipe, but you can use parsley or basil or even cilantro to change up the flavor of your salad dressing.
Crisp Chopped Salad with Creamy Kefir “Ranch” Dressing
Servings: Roughly four generous servings, but you can easily increase that by doubling the ingredients
Cooking Method: Chopping and whisking
Approximate Total Cooking Time: This depends on your knife skills…but probably 30 minutes or so?
A printable pdf version of the recipe is at the end of the post
Chopped Salad Ingredients
2 hearts of Romaine, cut into fourths and chopped into small bite-sized pieces of lettuce
1/2 of a small green cabbage, (or slightly more), confetti-chopped*
1 bell pepper, confetti chopped*
1 cup snap peas, cut into halves or thirds
2 carrots, cut into half moons or smaller
Fresh mint, dill or parsley
Optional additional veggies: Green beans, celery, green or red onion
Optional protein or carbs: chickpeas, chicken, salmon, nuts and seeds, steamed potatoes, croutons
Salad Instructions
* Confetti chopped means chopping ingredients up into tiny pieces so you can scoop them up with a spoon, instead of needing a fork to stab the lettuce and veggies. I especially like cabbage confetti chopped, because it’s much easier to eat in a salad.
Once the lettuce and veggies are chopped up, mix the salad together in a large bowl. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Sprinkle fresh herbs over the salad (like mint, or dill or parsley).
If eating immediately, toss with the dressing. Otherwise, wait to add the dressing until right before eating.
This salad tastes best when it is crisp and cold, so keep both the salad and dressing in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat.
Creamy Kefir “Ranch” Dressing Ingredients
½ cup plain unsweetened kefir (low-fat or full-fat)
⅓ cup mayonnaise
⅓ cup loosely packed dill fronds, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped then mashed into paste with the flat side of a large knife
¼ teaspoon salt and a grind of black pepper
Instructions
Just whisk all of the dressing ingredients in a bowl. I recommend whisking the dressing by hand because it will have the best consistency. If you use a blender or food processor the consistency of the dressing will be too thin and watery and it won’t coat salad greens.
If you make the dressing ahead of time, keep it in the fridge so it’s chilled when the salad is ready.
The dressing will stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
