Viral Italian Chopped Salad and Sandwich! This is messy but it’s so delicious! Super quick, filling and so good! Eat this as a salad or sandwich, up to you!
I know it’s a very bad habit but I look at my phone first thing in the morning or when I wake up in the middle of the night. I just reach over, grab my phone and if I’m lucky, I get inspired. Inspired with food recipes to make in the kitchen. I’ve made this before so I know firsthand how delicious this is. But I was scrolling and this kept coming up in my feed because you know once you like a post on TikTok, that’s all you get!
Viral Italian Chopped Salad and Sandwich
The beauty of this Italian Chopped (certainly not really Italian or from Italy) is that you can eat this as a salad or on bread and it’s equally delicious and filling both ways in my opinion.
THE HISTORY OF THE CHOPPED SALAD
According to Bon Appetit, “La Scala (restaurant in Beverly Hills, CA) was where the charismatic restaurateur Jean Leon fed his famous friends. The Jean Leon Original Chopped Salad (see ** Leon Salad**). Named for the restaurant’s original owner, it is believed—by some—to be the first salad of its kind. A mixture of iceberg lettuce leaves, salami, mozzarella, and marinated chickpeas. Natalie Wood is often credited with first having the idea to chop the restaurant’s “gourmet salad.” It’s an apocryphal story that drives Jean’s daughter Gigi Leon crazy. The reality, she says, is that “people were wearing evening gowns and tuxedos and complaining that the salad was messy and hard to eat, so my dad and the chef thought, why don’t we chop it?” It was a practical solution to a one percenter’s problem, and, while it may not have been the first salad to be diced to death, La Scala was the first to ink the words “chopped salad” on a restaurant’s menu. They still serve about 400 chops a day.”
“It was an addicting salad,” says Mozza’s Nancy Silverton, who started frequenting La Scala’s offshoot, La Scala Boutique, in the late 1970s. A mix of romaine, iceberg, salami, mozzarella, and chickpeas, shredded into near oblivion. “You were able to get a perfect, well distributed bite in every forkful,” she remembers. “It was the first time I understood the importance of a restaurant having something that is craveable—something that brought you back.” It was the first food Silverton requested after giving birth to her first child.”
From Saveur: Today the chopped salad is an emblem of LA’s penchant for sourcing locally and thinking globally. Clementine, a market-driven cafe in Century City, has a Spanish chopped salad of romaine and radicchio, -pimenton-marinated chickpeas, roasted red peppers, chorizo, and Mahon (a sharp cows’ milk cheese) tossed with sherry vinaigrette. At Ciudad, downtown, owners Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger offer a chopped salad featuring great big Cuzco corn kernels, plantain chips, calypso beans, and crumbled Cabrales (a Spanish blue cheese). One of my favorites, the chopped salad at Jar (see ** Jar Restaurant’s Chopped Salad**), a West Hollywood steak house, combines fresh cabbage, carrots, and fennel with olives, Italian prosciutto, and roast chicken.
ITALIAN CHOPPED SALAD
So, what started as a mixture of iceberg lettuce leaves, salami, mozzarella, and marinated chickpeas now has many different variations. I feel like the components vary from time to time; salami and mozzarella being the staples. And I’ve seen recipes move from Iceberg to romaine, or what I did: a mix of romaine and arugula. I just love that this salad has it all: tang/sour, salty, creamy, savory and a slight sweetness from the tomatoes. You can also add some heat with some spicy salami! Try this and let me know what you think!
Viral Italian Chopped Salad
Ingredients
- Romaine lettuce chopped
- fresh arugula
- Meats: turkey, salami and Mortadella
- provolone cheese
- 1 tomato sliced
- 1/2 red onion sliced
- Pepperoncinis
- mayonnaise* to taste
- 1 to 2 teaspoons red wine or apple cider vinegar
- 1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil extra virgin
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- You can either chop up everything separately, or like I do in the video: pile everything on a cutting board, including all the condiments and chop! Chop to the desired consistency you want. Taste and adjust anything as needed. Serve in a warm baguette or eat as a salad! Enjoy!
Notes
I love your recipes ♥️. They are easy to follow with familiar ingredients. Thank you, you’ve made my trek to eat healthy a lot easier ♥️
Hi Debbie! That is so great to hear! Hooray and thank you so much! Here’s to healthier eating!