This Summer Green Salad Is A Very Cheap Vegan Recipe

This summer green salad is a very cheap recipe because it is a leftover salad! That’s right. There are 2-3 leaves per green in this bowl, some lemon zest, and a few cherry tomatoes.

Super tasty salads sometimes come out of a flash idea, a hungry stomach, and almost nothing left in the fridge. I think all summer green salads may become very cheap vegan recipes with just a little love.

Please do not call it boring, though. This very cheap vegan recipe will add so much color to your table. It is light to eat, so vibrant, full of nutrients, hydrating, refreshing.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a new green salad in a cheap vegan recipes collection you will want to hang on your fridge.

Salads are never dull. I’ve told you how salads get you out of hunger even if you only have two ingredients in your fridge. And I know I’m no wrong.

The dressing for this cheap vegan recipe of green salad in the summer is a simple vinaigrette made with love and with my eyes closed. I swear you will want to eat it again the next day!

OK, I am writing a separate post only for this green salad in a cheap vegan recipe menu because it goes insanely perfect with toasts! And by the way, let’s admit toasts are the ideal solution for the summer heatwave.

I was sure it was not customary to lose appetite in summer until I read this. 

 I’m not alone. And I am sure that if I say that in summer I wish I’d not cook at all, most of you will join me.

Well, toasts are such a good solution for this. Quickly, with whatever you have on hand, you can create exquisite toasts within a brief time.

Toasts and salad are such a lovely combo and so inviting, but they make you feel full.

Let’s See What’s Inside This Very Cheap Vegan Recipe

Or, better see what you have left on your fridge. All I had was:

• Red leaf lettuce. All you need for a bowl (like mine, which is equals 2 portions) is 2-3 leaves of this kind of lettuce.
• Romaine lettuce, which is high in fiber and low in calories.
• A handful of celery leaves, all that you have left.
• Arugula, use the smalles portion in this case because it is bitter.
• Mint and basil.
• Chives. I did not have any garlic/shallot.
• Zest, as much lemon as you like. I like to use patato peeler for this.
• Cherry tomatoes, because tomato is the other word for summer! Cut them in half and put them inside of the salad.

Salad Tips That May Help You Prepare A Cheap Vegan Recipe

Well, my research tells me no green is unhealthy. But this helped me be selective when I bought my greens.

Too complicated? No worries! However, trust your gut and consider these tips:

1. Buy the shinest organic lettuce you can find. You’re just lucky if you grow lettuce yourself on your backyard.
2. In a salad use different types of lettuce, but choose the ones that have a similar type of leaf. For example, watercress and big radicchio absorb the dressing differently.
3. As you have lettuce, throw in almost as much whole leaves of various herbs.  I used basil and mint in my salad, but you can also add terragon, parsley, dill, chervil etc. Herbs help enhance the flavor in a salad.
4. Wash your leaves well in plenty of cold water  + a tablespoon of cider vinegar.
5. Make sure you put them into an absorbent material, such as soft cloth or whatever you have on hand and keep it in the fridge. Another idea would be putting the dry leaves into the salad spinner and transfering it into the fridge. When the leaves are cold, they become crisp.
6. Make it colorful. Add vibrant radishes and in spring/summer add halved cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.
7. Deepen the greens by adding green beans, asparagus, fresh peas etc.
8. Make the dressing with pounded garlic in a mortar with coarse sea salt, than adding your favorite vinegar (use more than one, if you can sense all the ingredients) or citrus: orange, citron, lemon juice. Than, whisk in very good olive oil until it thickens.  1 part of acid to 2-3 parts olive oil should do the trick.
9. Go with dicing a shallot if garlic is too hard for your taste.
10. Add some Dijon mustard and/or white miso if you like the vinaigrette to have more body.
11. Add the dressing partially and toss with your hands, as this way you can sense how much dressing is coating the leaves. Add more dressing if necessary.
12. Taste, taste, taste.
13. Add ground black pepper and serve!

Clean leaves dressed in just a sprinkle of sea salt, lemon juice, and a splash of olive oil make the salad just as heavenly as the method above.

Does This Salad Go Well With Apples?

Absolutely! You can still make an antioxidant-packed salad with a couple of apple slices in there. Fruits are welcome in salads, and apples are versatile. In my opinion, they go with every salad.

Summer green salads will look even more radiant with apples in them, and it would still be a cheap vegan recipe you can prepare with whatever you have on hand.

How To Spice It Up?

The truth is that any citrus zest will do amazing things to your food. The chances are that a little fragrant citrus zest will rescue any of a cheap vegan recipe from being stashed away in the fridge, never to be eaten again.

I spiced this salad up, peeling lemon skin.  Lemon zest is flavorful,  brightly colored, shiny, and it brings such a tangy flavor to the recipe.

It’s not that there is all lemon skin inside. I just peeled it like a potato while only taking just a thin layer of the inner skin.

My goal was not to cut it deeply, though. I just wanted to get the shallowest slice possible. And it worked for me, as it was not bitter. I could get it with my fork and feel all the essential oils of the lemon.

Also, another way to spice this salad is to pair it with something—ideally, toasts. The ingredients you see with this picture are the ingredients for a toast I’ll show you soon.

Other Related Salads

A bowl of salad does wonders in summer. Consider my mixed green salad or my pear and gorgonzola salad with celery. I’m sure you are going to love them!

A Note For This Salad

This salad is dairy-free, but feel free to add some of your favorite cheese if you will.

This summer green salad makes a very cheap vegan recipe. All the ingredients you will eat are raw, and they could be fresh from the farmers’ market as well.

This cheap vegan recipe is dressing versatile. It does accept every dressing a salad could go.

Toasts go AMAZINGLY with this salad. They make a perfect meal together, all packed, and you will see a couple of ideas in my other posts. Keep your eyes peeled.

Would you mind sharing your comments on this recipe? Let me know if other members of your crew liked it or if you already made some changes.

I’d love to hear more from you.

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