Herb Salad

A fresh herb salad is so easy to make and so delicious! Just adding a few simple herbs to a basic green salad really elevates the salad and adds so much flavor!

You don’t have to have a big yard to have an herb garden and you don’t need a lot of herbs to make an herb salad!

I have a small herb garden – sage, rosemary, tarragon, parsley, basil, thyme and oregano. Every year I vow to be more diligent in using my herbs.

Now, that I’ve discovered how easy and delicious they are when added to a salad, I use them almost every day!

It’s really easy to add them to a salad, but there are a few pointers and tips that I can share with you.

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Ingredients in a Fresh Herb Salad

Lettuce – You can make an herb salad entirely out of herbs, however I like to use some regular lettuce in mine. Use whatever kind of lettuce you have – for this I used a spring mix.

Greens – sometimes I use extra greens, sometimes I just have a base of lettuce. Some possible greens are – mustard, dandelion, chicory, or endive. For this version, I had some arugula in the fridge, so I used it.

Herbs – I’ll go into more detail below about what herbs to use, for this salad, I used parsley, mint, sage, and nasturtium sprouts.

Edible flowers – I used violets because they are going crazy in my yard right now. I also like to use nasturtium blossoms, sage blossoms and lavender. This article – The 10 Best Edible Flowers from Southern Living gives you all kinds of options!

Which Herbs to Use in a Salad

Some herbs lend themselves more to being used in a salad than others. My first rule of thumb is to use herbs that you like. If you love the flavor of an herb, you’ll love it in a salad!

Herbs to use: soft leaf herbs work best, like chervil, marjoram, basil, chives, garlic chives, purslane, lovage, basil, mint, dill, oregano, cilantro, parsley, thyme, nasturtium, and lemon verbena.

Herbs to avoid or use sparingly – rosemary, mature sage, savory, and hyssop.

Directions

The first thing to realize when making an herb salad is that there is no right or wrong way. Use the proportion that feels right to you.

Some recipes call for equal parts lettuce to herbs. Some call for all herbs.

I usually try to use equal parts lettuce to greens and herbs. So if I’m using 4 cups of lettuce, I want a 4 cup mixture of greens and herbs.

For this particular salad, I used 4 cups spring lettuce mix, 2 cups of arugula and a little over a cup of herbs. Since I was using sage and mint, both of which can be strong, I used less herbs.

For edible flowers – I usually use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup.

Since the herb salad has so much flavor, I used a very simple Lemon Vinaigrette.

This was so good and I can’t believe that I have waited this long to add herbs to a salad!

This makes a great side dish salad and I actually topped ours with a fried egg and with a big chunk of sourdough bread and we had an excellent light dinner!

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More fresh herb recipes:

Recipe

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