Antipasto salad…no bread needed!

I am all about a good antipasto dish, usually with a nice (big) bottle of red wine hanging around too. I love cheese, salami, some pickled veggies and olives, maybe some good fruit chutney and a lot of bread to go along with that. We are still trying to avoid carbs and wheat, so I started looking at some anti pasta salad recipes to deal with my craving. This is what I came up with. It’s spicy, salty, crunchy from the iceberg lettuce and the veggies. It’s so good I almost didn’t miss the bread – almost – but I can enjoy this just as much bread-free. One good thing about this dish is that you can make it all ahead and just assemble it when you are ready to eat. Bonus – there is NO cooking at all!!

This really isn’t a recipe, more like a guide list of ingredients. You can change up the veggies, lettuces and dressing with whatever antipasto staples you like. It’s your food after all. 🙂

This amount made about 2 dinner sized (huge) salads. Here’s what I used, but change it up however you like:

• 1/2 head each of red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, chopped
• 1/2 cup of English cucumber, chopped
• 1/3 cup Kalamata and red pepper stuffed olives, (pitted if needed) and chopped
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 1/2 cup mixed cherry or Campari tomatoes, whatever is best that time of year
• 1/4 cup sliced roasted red pepper – not in the pic I just threw them in last minute
• 1/3 lb. each thick cut genoa salami and provolone cheese, sliced and diced (pepperoni would be good here too!)
• Dressing: 3 tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 2 tbs. Red wine vinegar, 1 tsp. dried oregano, 1-2 tbs. olive tapenade, 1 -2 tsp. Calabrian chili sauce (optional). You can just use some crushed red pepper flakes if you want or can’t find the sauce. Increase/decrease amounts and add cracked pepper to your taste. Taste before you salt it…the olive paste and the chili sauce can be salty enough.

Mix or shake all the ingredients for the dressing together in a jar or small bowl. Let that sit aside while you chop the rest of the salad stuff up.

I used 1/2 of each of the lettuce pictured here. Just chop it up as you like, wash and dry it. For the veggies, chop the tomatoes and place them in a bowl. Note: I never store tomatoes in the fridge, either whole or chopped. It changes the texture and the taste. Mix the chopped veggies (cucumber, onion, peppers, plus whatever else you’d like) and olives in a salad bowl. I sprinkle a little salt on the cucumber and tomatoes, but watch the amount because the olives in the dressing and the salad can get pretty salty. I get my salami and cheese from the deli, sliced on the large #5 size but get size that you prefer. I cut them in strips then cube them up. I used 2 thick slices of each for this, about 1/3 of a pound of each. Put the meat and cheese on top of the veggies but don’t stir them in if you aren’t going to eat them right away. Just cover them with plastic wrap and stash the lettuce and veggies in the firdge until you are ready to eat. The cheese might get slimy (ick!!) if you get them mixed in with the vinegar from the olives for too long.

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When you are ready to serve, you can just toss the veggies, meat and cheese, and lettuce all together with the dressing. I like to put the lettuce in an individual bowl with some dressing, and top with a lot of the veggie/meat/cheese mix and stir it all together. Either way it’s a great salad, with no wheat! Enjoy!