Antipasto Salad | The Modern Proper (2024)

April 15, 2022

Take all the greatest Italian salty, briny, tangy, pickly things and toss them with crunchy lettuce and a Parm-lemon dressing and you’ve got the best antipasto salad ever.

Photography by Gayle McLeod

Simply The Most Majorly-Loaded, Best Dressed, Overall Best Antipasto Salad Recipe, Ever.

You may be familiar with the Italian antipasto course. It’s a snacky course that would normally be served at the start of a formal, multi-course meal before the pasta course. What exactly appears on an antipasto platter can vary a lot, but a classic, simple antipasto would include some olives, cured meats, and maybe a bit of cheese. It can be more elaborate, but it’s often meant to be relatively simple—a few really great bites of something to whet the appetite for the main meal. However, when you take the idea of an antipasto and make it into a an antipasto salad, it becomes the meal! Antipasto salad is no starter—oooooh no! It’s definitely the main event.

All The Best Antipasto Salad Ingredients

Crisp, crunchy romaine lettuce is the base for this hearty, meaty, main dish salad recipe. Antipasto salad is a great main meal in the summertime when you don’t want to turn on the oven and even standing over the grill sounds like just too much work. To gather the ingredients, you’ll make a pit stop in produce, but most of the antipasto salad ingredients will come from the olive bar and / or the pickled stuff aisle, or whatever you call that aisle—maybe the condiment section? The greatest aisle of them all? Anyway, we digress. Yes, if you’ve ever wanted to just absolutely go to town in the condiment department, this antipasto salad recipe is your chance! This recipe asks only that you load up on marinated artichoke hearts, olives of all kinds, pepperoncini (those are those little pickled peppers with a kick), fresh mozzarella balls, and so on. Once you’ve done that—oh, and grabbed your favorite salami, too—you’re ready to make a salad! Here’s all you’ll need to make this fabulous salad:

• Romaine lettuce

• Artichoke hearts

  See Also

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• Fresh mozzarella

• Roasted red peppers

• Salami

• Olives

• Pepperoncini

• Red onion

• Fresh basil

A Creamy, Lemony Antipasto Salad Dressing

Ahh yes. What’s a terrific salad without a killer dressing? We love to make dressings from scratch—it’s really the only way to go. It takes seconds to do, and fresh, homemade salad dressings are always, always, always better—and better for you—than store bought salad dressings. No weird hom*ogenized or hydrogenated ingredients or stabilizers here. Nope! Just Parmesan cheese, mayo, olive oil and plenty of lemon juice for a creamy, zingy, delectable dressing that’ll make this antipasto salad into your family’s new forever favorite. Here’s everything you’ll need to make it:

• Mayo

• Fresh lemons

• Extra-virgin olive oil

• Parmesan cheese. The one and only Parmigiano Reggiano!

• Garlic. Try grating it with a microplane so that it’ll really meld into the dressing.

• Dijon mustard

• Herbs: Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder

How to Make A Gorgeous Antipasto Salad

So really, this antipasto salad could also be called a chopped salad—it certainly falls into that category, as it definitely does require a fair amount of chopping. But that’s all you have to do! Like we said this salad is a hot weather dream—no oven, no flames, no heat required. Here’s how to make this beautiful Italian antipasto salad:

1. Whip up the lemon-Parmesan dressing. Simply whisk all the ingredients together!

2. Chop chop chop! Chop up everything that needs it.

3. Toss! Toss the chopped stuff with the dressing. Dig in!

Tools You’ll Need

• Sharp knife

• A good cutting board

• Mixing bowls

• Good salad tongs are handy.

More Main Dish Salad Recipes to Try

• Easy Niçoise Salad

• Taco Salad

• Italian Chopped Salad

• Mediterranean Pasta Salad

• Salmon Niçoise Salad

You’ve Got the Chops!

You can definitely make this easy antipasto salad—it’s super easy and most of the work is done by the lovely people who make the salami, cure the olives, age the cheese and so on. You just take all of their wares and toss them together for a no-fail salad recipe! When you mix up this salad, let us know how it goes over with the crew! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!