This Italian Chopped Salad is a copycat of the famous California Pizza Kitchen salad. It's loaded with ham, salami, chickpeas, tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil, and lettuce. It is tossed in an easy lemon, Dijon, and herb vinaigrette.
DRESSING: Place all of the dressing ingredients in a container with a lid. Season to taste with salt and pepper -- I add about 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper. Cover and shake briskly to combine. Place in the fridge and store there until ready to dress the salad.
LETTUCE: Wash and chop the lettuce. I like to cut the lettuce into ribbons (roll up the pieces into cigars and then thinly slice) and then halve the ribbons -- thinner salad pieces allow for more surface area for the dressing to adhere to. Use a salad spinner to ensure the lettuce is 100% dry before adding any other ingredients.
SALADINGREDIENTS: Add in the drained & rinsed chickpeas, quartered cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, thinly sliced salami, chopped ham, halved mozzarella pearls, and thinly sliced pepperoncini. Chiffonade the basil pieces (see Note 3) and add those to the salad. Toss the salad and adjust add-ins to personal preference.
ADDDRESSING: Remove the dressing from the fridge and shake again to recombine. Only add the dressing to the quantity of salad you will be enjoying immediately (see Note 2). Unfortunately, this salad doesn't sit well with dressing, so keep it separate until right ready to eat!
LEFTOVERDRESSING: You may not use all the dressing in this salad (dress to preference). Leftover dressing keeps up to a week in the fridge.
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Notes
Note 1: Lettuce: For crunch and variety, use two different types of lettuce -- romaine and iceberg. If you do mix and match use 1/2 head of iceberg and 1/2 head of romaine. (I typically just use romaine though)Note 2: Dressing: This is more dressing than you'll need for this salad, but I'd rather you have more than not enough! Dress salad slowly and to taste; save leftover dressing in the fridge for up to a week. Don’t be alarmed if the dressing separates or forms clumps. It’s just the olive oil solidifying, which it does at cold temps. Take the vinaigrette out of the fridge about 20-30 minutes or so before you need it and let it return to temperature. Then shake it up to remix.Note 3:Chiffonade: Chiffonade is the technique of cutting thin ribbons, usually from lettuces or herbs. To chiffonade basil, gather the leaves together into a stack, and roll up like a cigar. Make thin slices through the rolled bundle, and unroll to see the delicate ribbons. For shorter chiffonade, cut each slice in half before unrolling the leaves.