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This Chopped Italian Salad is the loaded salad of your dreams, with romaine, chickpeas, fresh veggies, pickled peppers, olives, and vegan Parmesan cheese tossed in a zingy Italian salad dressing. Vegan and Gluten-Free, Oil-Free Option.
If you’re looking for a simple side dish bursting with vibrant colors, sweet and tangy flavors, and interesting textures, this Chopped Italian Salad has you covered. It’s a twist on a classic that tosses hearty chickpeas, refreshing vegetables, briny flavor boosters, fresh herbs, and vegan Parmesan cheese in a tangy Italian vinaigrette. Load up your plate with this fully loaded side dish or stuff it into a hoagie roll and enjoy!
Table of Contents
What is an Italian Chopped Salad?
My Vegan Chopped Salad Recipe is a play on the traditional refreshing, flavor-packed, fully loaded Italian salad. A classic Italian chopped salad brings a bunch of finely chopped ingredients together—usually tomatoes, onions, deli meats, cheeses, olives, and briny pickled peppers—and tosses them all in a zesty vinaigrette. My version swaps the animal products for simple vegan alternatives but is just as vibrant, hearty, and filling.
Serve it on the side of your favorite Italian main dishes, stuff the salad into a hoagie roll for chopped salad sandwiches, or munch on it straight from the bowl!
What You Need for a Vegan Chopped Salad
This crazy good Italian chopped salad combines fresh ingredients and pantry staples in a bowl before they’re tossed in a 7-ingredient homemade dressing. These are the key ingredients you’ll need:
- Lettuce: finely chopped romaine is what you’ll find in a classic Italian chopped salad recipe, but iceberg lettuce is a great choice, too. Both are crisp and refreshing and go well with the Italian salad toppings. To take this salad over the top, combine the lettuce with a finely chopped small head of radicchio. It’s deliciously bitter and adds complex layers of flavor!
- Fresh Vegetables: the salad is topped with cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced cucumbers (Persian cucumbers are extra crispy, but English cucumbers can also be used), bell peppers, and red onion. You can swap the raw red onions for my Quick Pickled Red Onions if you love a briny burst of flavor.
- Garbanzo Beans: canned garbanzo beans (AKA chickpeas) are what make this salad extra hearty and filling.
- Briny Vegetables: it wouldn’t be an Italian chopped salad without the briny pickled flavor boosters! Use either banana peppers or pepperoncini peppers and Kalamata olives or black olives.
- Dairy-Free Parmesan Cheese: any store-bought vegan Parmesan that you can grate finely will work here. I like using Violife Parmesan best because I can grate the block using a microplane.
- Italian Chopped Salad Dressing: this zingy dressing is like a classic Italian dressing taken up a notch. It’s really easy to make using extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, Dijon, garlic, dried oregano, salt, and pepper. You can make it the day of or a few days in advance to save some time.
How to Make a Vegan Chopped Salad
- Combine the salad dressing ingredients in a small jar, seal the lid shut, and shake vigorously until it’s emulsified.
- Add the lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, bell pepper, onion, pickled peppers, olives, parsley, and Parmesan to a large bowl.
- Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to coat. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Divide the salad between plates and serve right away. Enjoy!
Caitlin’s Cooking Tips
- Marinate the chickpeas in the dressing: By soaking the chickpeas in the Italian dressing for 10 minutes before tossing everything together, you can fill them with extra flavor!
- Canned beans are the way to go: You’re more than welcome to cook dried garbanzo beans for this salad but I personally prefer canned beans since they tend to be softer. Save the slightly firmer dried chickpeas for soups and stews, like this Lemon Chickpea Orzo Soup. Or, if you’re set on cooking the beans from scratch, you can find the instructions in the FAQs below.
- Play around with the ingredients to find your perfect flavor. Use pepperoncini peppers instead of banana peppers if you want a slightly spicy kick; swap the black olives for Kalamata olives to feel like you’re eating this salad in the Mediterranean; or add finely chopped radicchio or fennel to add a complementary layer of bitterness to this already flavor-packed side dish.
Serving Suggestions
This vegan Italian chopped salad is one of the best appetizers or side dishes to pair with your homemade Italian feast. Pair the salad with slices of this Italian Herbs & Cheese Bread before serving this Roasted Red Pepper Pasta or this Vegan Tofu Parmesan as the main dish, then finish the meal with this Apple Blueberry Crisp for dessert.
A chopped salad is always welcome at the potluck or backyard BBQ, too. All of those crisp vegetables and the tangy dressing make it a refreshing side dish to serve with these Sweet Potato Black Bean Burgers, this Vegan Macaroni Salad, and other crowd-pleasers.
Want to turn this salad into a meal? There’s no better way than loading it into a hoagie roll with slices of vegan deli meat and vegan mozzarella or provolone cheese. Each bite of these chopped Italian sub sandwiches is crisp, meaty, and amazing!
If you’re looking for more vegan Italian-inspired salad recipes, you’ll also love this Everything Bagel Panzanella Salad, this Grilled Romaine & Charred Corn Salad, and this Pesto Orzo Salad!
How to Store Leftover Chopped Salad
This vegan chopped salad is best eaten within a few hours of being assembled. As it sits, the dressing will soak into the greens, and the vegetables will release their liquid, eventually making the salad a bit soggy. If you do end up with leftovers, they’ll keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
Serve the chilled leftovers straight from the fridge or let them sit on the kitchen counter for about 10 minutes to bring them down to room temperature. The greens and veggies will be a little softer but will still taste great!
Substitutions and Variations
- Oil-Free Option: The extra virgin olive oil in the salad dressing can be replaced with 1/4 cup of runny tahini or my Oil-Free Mayonnaise. The consistency will be creamier and the flavor will be a bit different but still very tasty!
- Add Vegan Cold Cuts: A lot of Italian chopped salad recipes are made with sliced deli meats, like salami or pepperoni. You can add your favorite vegan alternatives, like vegan deli turkey, pepperoni, or ham slices, to the salad if you want a salty, meaty touch.
- Parmesan Cheese Substitute: The dairy-free Parmesan cheese can be swapped for an equal amount of nutritional yeast or omitted from the recipe if it isn’t available to you.
- Garbanzo Bean Substitute: Another white bean, like cannellini or Great Northern beans, can be used instead of chickpeas.
Recipe FAQs
A classic chopped salad recipe is made with almost everything you’d find in an Italian deli. Typically, it tosses finely chopped lettuce, chickpeas, mozzarella, salami, olives, onions, pepperoncini peppers, and tomatoes in an Italian vinaigrette.
You can assemble the salad up to 2 hours before serving. If you’d like to prepare it even sooner, chop the salad ingredients and make the dressing, then keep everything in separate containers in the fridge until it’s time to assemble the salad.
I prefer canned garbanzo beans because they tend to be a bit softer but dried beans cooked from scratch also work. Soak the dried beans in water overnight, then boil them in fresh water the next day until tender.
Enjoy! If you make this recipe and decide to share it on Facebook or Instagram, don’t forget to tag me @FromMyBowl + #FromMyBowl! I would also love it if you could leave a comment below with a recipe rating! Thank you for the support 😊
Chopped Italian Salad
Ingredients
For the Dressing:
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice about 1/2-1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 clove garlic minced mo
- 1 ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- black pepper to taste
For the Salad:
- 1 head romaine lettuce finely chopped (or 1 small head iceberg lettuce)
- 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes cut in half
- 2 persian cucumbers quartered and sliced
- 1 16 ounce can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed
- 1 red bell pepper fine dice
- 1/4 red onion finely sliced
- 1/3 cup sliced banana peppers or pepperoncini peppers
- 1/2 cup sliced kalamata or black olives optional
- 1/2 cup fresh parsley and/or basil finely chopped
- 1 ounce parmesan cheese grated (optional; I used dairy-free)
Instructions
- Make the Dressing: Add the olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, oregano, salt, and black pepper to a small jar. Close the jar and shake vigorously, until the dressing is emulsified. Set aside.
- Make the Salad: Add the lettuce to the base of a large bowl. Sprinkle the tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, bell pepper, onion, banana peppers or pepperoncini, olives, parsley, and Parmesan on top.
- Mix: Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well with tongs, until everything is evenly mixed and coated with dressing. Add additional salt and pepper to taste, as necessary.
- Serve: Divide between serving plates and serve immediately. Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Recipe Notes
- Parmesan: I used the Violife dairy-free Parmesan block for this recipe and finely grated it using a microplane.
Looooove it, I added cous cous and used feta instead of parmesan 😍
Yum! So happy you enjoyed
This salad was great! Will definitely make again!
Glad you enjoyed!