Chopped Antipasto Salad

Traditional antipasto ingredients team with lettuce and a tangy dressing in this chopped antipasto salad recipe!

I have an enormous crush on antipasto, which (with apologies to all my Italian friends out there) means a giant platter of cheese and smoked meats and veggies that you are encouraged to snack on to your hearts content.  

However, traditional antipasto usually includes a few things that I don’t like.  Olives.  Roasted red peppers.  PICKLED MUSHROOMS.

So I decided to go rogue and build an antipasto full of only things I like, and since I am breaking all kinds of antipasto rules anyway, to turn it into a salad.

I do love a good main meal salad, especially now that summertime is around the corner. Not only are they usually cool and delicious, but they also are often speedy to make with not a lot of cooking.

Which works out when you feel like this at the end of the day.

I feel you, sweet doggo.

How to make chopped antipasto salad

As with the Kitchen Sink Tuna Salad that I talked about recently, one of the wonderful things about antipasto salad is that you can build it out of your particular favorites.

You want to include some conglomeration of smoked meats, veggies and cheese. You want to chop those delectable ingredients up so they work in salad form. And you want a tangy dressing to hold it together.

As long as you follow those rough guidelines, you can riff on it to your heart’s content. Cooking happiness!

For my version, I cubed up some soppresetta salami and some ham. You can go crazy with this part – pepperoni, chorizo, Genoa salami or even rolled up pieces of prosciutto all would be wonderful on top of wonderful.

For the veggies, I went with chopped romaine lettuce, artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes.  

You can use plain defrosted artichoke hearts, or you can add a little extra zing with the marinated kind in the jar.  

The cherry tomatoes gave a little sweetness to an otherwise spicy and salty combo of ingredients, and a fun pop of color.  

And because this was a salad, a generous amount of crunchy romaine.

Last but not least, the CHEESE.  I found some adorable round mozzarella pearls in my supermarket, but you can cube up regular mozzarella as well.  

Toss the whole thing together with a little balsamic dressing – if I am feeling energetic I will make this homemade version, but your favorite bottled dressing will work just fine.

Or! if you are using the marinated artichoke hearts, the liquid in the jar will make a lovely dressing in and of itself.

And if you are an olive/roasted red peppers/marinated mushrooms type of person, you go ahead and toss them in as well!

One way or the other, this is going to make your dining companions all kind of happy, with a little taste sensation for everyone! Happy salad for supper, my friends. :)

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Updated (and made even more delicious!) from a previously published Framed Cooks post!