Antipasto Chopped Salad

I love this low-carb Antipasto Chopped Salad, and this post has ingredient suggestions and tips for making restaurant-quality salads at home! And this is a recipe where you can vary the ingredients based on what’s in the fridge!

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My favorite Antipasto Chopped Salad is on the menu today; doesn’t that look good? This favorite salad is like the kind you might order in an Italian restaurant, loaded with tasty ingredients like olives, hearts of palm, pepperoni, marinated mushrooms, Peperoncini, slices of Mozzarella and capers.

Some people might look at all that’s going on in this salad and decide to skip it because it will take too long to chop up all those antipasto ingredients.  But truthfully, interesting salads like this can be easy to pull together once you master a few tricks for satisfying salads. I’m giving you an antipasto salad template here; you can assemble the salad from the ingredients you prefer. And don’t miss my tips for prepping ingredients and suggestions for creating satisfying salads at home!

What ingredients do you need?

• chopped romaine lettuce
• black olives
• pepperoni
• Hearts of Palm (affiliate link)
• marinated mushrooms
• Sliced Peperoncini Peppers (affiliate link)
• string cheese
• Capers (affiliate link)
• Newman’s Own Classic Oil and Vinegar Dressing (affiliate link) or use your favorite garlicky Italian dressing
• See additional ingredient options in the recipe below

Prepping salad additions to keep in the fridge for Antipasto Chopped Salad:

1. Drain a can of regular black olives, and cut all the olives in half.
2. Chop up a generous amount of pepperoni or salami. (Use turkey or regular pepperoni, your choice.)
3. I love hearts of palm in my salad.  (They can be quite pricey, but Costco sometimes sells them in big jars that are reasonable.)
4. Marinated mushrooms are also a bit of a splurge, but it only takes a small handful of them to really bump up the flavor in the salad.
5. I always have jars of Peperoncini in the fridge, and a small handful of these also adds a lot of flavor.
6. I use string cheese sliced into little rounds for the cheese in my salad.

Assembling Antipasto Chopped Salad:

1. Here’s a photo that shows you how much of each ingredient I prep at once.  These little containers are about 5 inches across, and they stack up nicely in the fridge.
2. Lettuce is a personal choice, but I mostly use romaine lettuce, chopped or torn and washed in a salad spinner.
3. And one final ingredient I would never skip in a salad like this is capers, those briny little morsels that add so much flavor. (And that well-used measuring spoon isn’t too suitable for photos, oops.)
4. To make a salad, toss desired amount of lettuce with a couple of tablespoons of your favorite dressing. Then toss in all the other ingredients of your choice and toss again. I like a generous amount of freshly-ground black pepper on this!

More Tips for Satisfying Salads at Home:

• Always keep lettuce that’s chopped or torn, washed, and ready to eat in the fridge. You can even seal prepped lettuce in jars with a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer (affiliate link) but when I’m eating salad often I just keep it in a plastic container with a snap-tight lid. When I’m prepping lettuce I do enough for at least 3-4 salads so that I’ll always have prepared lettuce in the fridge.
• For a satisfying salad it’s important to have a dressing that’s really flavorful, and tasty dressings with healthy oils like olive oil and not much sugar are abundant if check the label. For my antipasto salads, I sometimes buy my favorite dressings from a couple of restaurants, but Newman’s Own Olive Oil and Vinegar Dressing (affiliate link) is one low-sugar dressing I use often. 
• Finally, my main tip for making satisfying salads like this in a flash is to prep generous amounts of all the special ingredients each time you’re doing it, so that it’s easy to just pull the prepared ingredients out of the fridge and throw together a salad.  All the things I use in this favorite salad will last in the fridge for more than a week, and I can eat this salad often without being tired of it. Even if you only use a few of these things, your salad will be pretty tasty, and there are other things you could also use if I’ve missed some of your own favorite salad additions.

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More Satisfying Low-Carb Green Salads from Kalyn:

American Greek Salad
Chopped Chicken Salad with Cafe Rio Salad Dressing
Warm Scallop Caesar Salad
Fattoush Lebanese Salad
Caesar Salad with Kale, Romaine, and Shaved Parmesan
Ottolenghi’s Perfect Lettuce Salad

Weekend Food Prep:

This recipe has been added to a category called Weekend Food Prep where you will find recipes you can prep or cook on the weekend and eat during the week!

 Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
This low-carb Antipasto Chopped Salad is suitable for any low-carb or Keto diet, and with the right choices on ingredients it can be adapted for any phase of the original South Beach Diet as well as Paleo and Whole 30 diets.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Salad Recipes to find more recipes like this one. Use the Recipes by Diet Type photo index pages to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You can also Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was posted in 2012. It was last updated with more information in 2022.

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