Chopped Antipasto Salad Recipe

My favorite Chopped Antipasto Salad is a side dish salad that I love to make for dinner guests, and this kind of salad is always a hit! This is a perfect salad any time of year; you can vary the ingredients based on what’s in the fridge!

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My favorite Chopped Antipasto Salad is like the kind of salad you might order in an Italian restaurant, loaded with tasty ingredients like olives, hearts of palm, pepperoni, marinated Peperoncini, slices of Mozzarella and capers. And recently I decided this recipe really needed a photo makeover! I hope the new photos will entice you to try it.

Maybe some people might look at all that’s going on in this Antipasto Salad and worry that it will take too long to chop up all those ingredients. But truthfully, interesting salads like this can be easy to pull together once you master a few tricks for satisfying salads. Don’t miss my tips in this post for prepping ingredients and creating restaurant-quality salads at home!

What ingredients do you need?

(This is only a list of ingredients; please scroll down for complete printable recipe with ingredient amounts. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

What does Antipasto mean?

The word Antipasto refers to the first course of an Italian meal and according to Wikipedia it includes things like “cured meats, olives, Peperoncini, mushrooms, anchovies, artichoke hearts, various cheeses, and pickled meats or vegetables in oil or vinegar.”

Do you need all these Antipasto ingredients to make a good salad?

This is one of those recipes with endless variations, and I think any combination of the ingredients I used will make a tasty salad, even if you don’t use every ingredient I have listed. And I’m also sharing some ideas for other flavorful add-ins if you happen to have some of those on hand, so don’t be afraid to adapt this recipe to your own taste and what’s in the fridge.

What else could you add to the Chopped Antipasto Salad?

There are lots of other antipasto ingredients you can add to this salad including marinated mushrooms, artichoke hearts, chopped salami or prosciutto, Roasted Red Peppers in a jar, cherry tomatoes, red or green onion, pickled asparagus, pickled green beans, fresh Mozzarella balls, and green olives. What else can you think of?

Tips for Making Satisfying Salads at Home:

• 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 but when I’m eating salad regularly I just keep it in a plastic container with a snap-tight lid.
• Whenever I’m prepping lettuce for any reason, I try to do enough for several 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 Columbia Restaurant 1905 Dressing that’s used on one of my favorite restaurant salads, but that dressing is definitely a budget splurge and Newman’s Own Olive Oil and Vinegar Dressing is the low-sugar dressing I use most often.
• Another tip for making satisfying salads like this is to prep generous amounts of all the special ingredients, so 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 over and over without getting tired of it.
• Even if you only use a few of the things I did, a salad with any type of antipasto ingredients will always be tasty!

Prepping and assembling the Chopped Antipasto Salad:

1. Start by tearing apart lettuce and crisping it in ice-cold water in the salad spinner.
2. Drain olives and cut olives in half.
3. Chop up a generous amount of pepperoni or salami.
4. Drain and cut hearts of palm.
5. Chop peperoncini peppers.
6. Slice string cheese into rounds.
7. Prepare capers.
8. Drain lettuce and toss with dressing.
9. Add olives, pepperoni, hearts of palm, peperoncini peppers, Mozzarella cheese, and capers.
10. Toss until all ingredients are well-coated with dressing.
11. Season with black pepper and serve.

More Satisfying Lettuce Salads from Kalyn:

Weekend Food Prep:

This Chopped Antipasto Salad 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!