Click here for the WTC recipe index, and scroll to the very bottom of this post for a printer-friendly version of today’s recipe!
Before all the parents of small children delete this email and banish it as a non-family-friendly meal: Hear me out!
There’s a time and a place for a fully assembled, tossed salad. And there’s a time and a place for a salad platter, where eaters pick and choose and assemble their own meal.
And I’m giving you the playbook for how to do both!
If you’re serving all non-picky adults, I’d go the fully assembled route — just toss everything in a bowl, dress it, give it a chop, and serve it up. Maybe throw a nice sliced sourdough in the mix.
But if you’re serving picky kiddos (or adults — I’ve heard some horror stories about y’all’s picky husbands over the past two years!), the platter route is such a fun way to serve dinner. You can even add some things that you know your kids will love to the platter — like raspberries or apple slices or slices of sourdough — to ensure that they feel comfortable and confident building their own plates. P.S. You don’t have to call it a “salad platter” — maybe stick with “snack platter” to get the little buggers to eat!
My 3 1/2 year old, Mattis, loves salami, cucumbers, and avocado, so this dinner was an easy sell for him. My almost 2 year old, Calum, made a massive mess while using “TAHNSS” (tongs) to put everything he wanted onto his own plate but, whatever! He’s learning about making food choices, having fun, and staying occupied while I eat my meal. Win, win, win.
And George and I got to enjoy a big, delicious salad (his without olives), while not having to prepare a separate meal for the kids.
That’s what I call a dinnertime success.
Italian goddess?
For this week’s recipe, I merged two of the all-time greats: a fully loaded chopped Italian salad with a perfectly creamy, herby, zingy green goddess dressing.
One of my testers described this salad as “basically an Italian sandwich in salad form, but it’s better than a sandwich so you don’t even miss the bread.” So … yeah. If that doesn’t convince you to make this, I don’t know what will!
meal prep potential
Great meal prep potential here! Toss the greens together and keep those in one container. Store all of the other ingredients in separate little containers. I’d also grab a rotisserie chicken and shred that up to have some protein variety. Mix and match and make salads or little snack platters for yourself all week long!
what else should I cook this week?
Here are some other meals you gotta make before summer produce season is over!
Sausage Stuffed Zucchini // Garden overflowing with zucchini? You gotta make these! Bonus: Make extras and freeze them after baking them for a quick weeknight meal down the road.
5-Ingredient Eggplant Parm // Easy summer comfort food.
Chicken Panzanella // This is one of my top ten WTC recipes. Roasted chicken and bread get topped with fresh summer tomatoes, goat cheese, basil. Served over arugula. If you make the Italian Goddess this week, throw some leftover pepperoncini in to roast with the chicken. It’s delightful.
Sheet-Pan Summer Corn Pizza // The best of summer, all thrown onto a cheesy sheet-pan ‘za. So good.
Shrimp and Fresh Corn Grits // This recipe is in my top three all-time WTC recipes. I LOVE these “grits.” Fresh corn is grated (like, on a box grater!), then slowly cooked until the starches form into the most delicious, addictive creamy base for the shrimp and pepper mixture that we pile on top. It’s so cozy, but also healthy, and just absurdly delicious!
chopped italian goddess
Serves 4 to 6 (if cooking for less than 4 people, see notes section)
Watch with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to What To Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking to watch this video and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
