Italian Summer Vegetable Salad
One of the most simple and delicious fresh summer salads to enjoy when gardens and farmers' markets are bursting with their bounty. This is one of my family's perennial favorite salads that my mother prepared continually during summer's peak of flavor months. You'll never tire of it! Buon appetito!
Servings: 6 - 8 servings
Ingredients
- 2 green peppers with seeds and white pithy parts removed, then sliced and cut into 1/2" to 1" pieces
- 1 red pepper prepared the same as the green peppers
- 1 yellow pepper prepared the same as well
- 2 medium fresh tomatoes cut into chunks (use more if you prefer)
- 2 small cucumbers skin removed, sliced vertically in half, then sliced horizontally into chunks, remove seeds if you prefer
- 1 small onion or 10 green onions diced into small pieces, using the green stem if you like ( I don't use the green leaves of green onions unless it is absolutely necessary for a recipe)
- 5 branches of Italian Parsley remove all of stems and discard/compost, chop up the leaves
Italian salad dressing or vinaigrette (Good Seasons Italian dressing dry mix): Use red wine vinegar, olive oil and a tsp. of sugar when making this
- 2 tsp.. freshly grated sea salt
- 1 tsp. freshly grated black pepper
Instructions
- Wash and clean all vegetables
- Cut up peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions
- Place vegetables in a large mixing bowl.
- Add vinaigrette/dressing . . . about 3/4 cup to start. Add more if necessary to coat all vegetables and still have a small pool of vinaigrette/dressing at the bottom of the mixing bowl.
- For about 1/2 hour, place in the refrigerator to set aside the salad and allow it to macerate and marry all of the ingredients. The juice from the fresh tomatoes will blend with the vinaigrette and make a fabulous dressing. Add more salt to really make this sing!
- This can be refrigerated for several days. If the frig is so cold that the dressing thickens, just allow the salad to set out about 1/2 hour before serving again.
Notes
This can be refrigerated for several days. If the frig is so cold that the dressing thickens, just allow the salad to set out about 1/2 hour before serving again.