Chopped Iceberg Salad

Chopped Iceberg Salad with Garlic Lemon Dressing is a simple,
but impossibly delicious and easy salad recipe. 

Ever had a salad recipe, where you find yourself craving it again and again?!

That’s how I feel about Molly Baz’s Little Wedge Salad with Sour Cream Dressing. 

It is OUT.OF.THIS.WORLD.

If you’re into Bon Appetit’s Youtube channel as much as all my people are, you know Molly B makes some killer recipes!

I’m a biscuit making fool, and I learned a fabulous technique from Claire Saffitz & Molly Baz about layering the dough before cutting. Hoping to share that recipe later next month!

How to Make a Chopped Iceberg Salad
with Lemon Garlic Dressing

Kitchen Equipment You’ll Need:

• Big Mixing Bowl
• Small Mixing Bowl
• Spatula
• Salad Servers
• Microplane
• Chef’s Knife

All these items can be found in my Amazon Influencer Store — head on over to check all the goodies out!

Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Iceberg
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Pickled Shallots
• Lemon
• Sour Cream
• Mayo
• Salt & Pepper
• Garlic

Before we start with a play-by-play for this easy salad recipe, let’s talk through the components.

First up, we have iceberg lettuce. Used to get a bad rap, now it’s back on the scene with vigor! It’s no longer the lame lettuce you get at Pizza Hut but filled with potassium, calcium, vitamin C and folate.

Not that we *really* care about any of that here! But, the crunchiness of this lettuce cannot be replicated.

Chopped Iceberg Salad is really a blank canvas for you — you could add anything you like.

Today, I’m using up the items from my fridge: Persian cucumbers, carrots, and shallots that we’ll pickle. Yum!

Then, we’ll mix up my new favorite dressing.

I’ve recreated it with a little more little more, and it’s just delightful! All last week I spent my lunch hours dipping raw veggies into this lemony, garlicky dressing that is undeniably delicious.

Let’s start with the dressing:

In a small-ish bowl, add the sour cream and mayo. Feel free to use Greek yogurt, if you want! 

Now, get out your Microplane. <<< I love this kitchen tool!! It’s one of my more used tools!

Pop a garlic clove off the blub, and give it a good whack on the cutting board with your knife.

Gently peel away the paper, keeping the garlic clove whole. 

This is a large garlic clove, so I’m only going to use one. But, this is about the size of 2-3 ‘normal’ sized garlic cloves.

This is my absolute favorite way of getting garlic into any recipe.

Just run it over the microplane, watch your fingers! 

You’ll end up with grated garlic that seamlessly mixes into anything. Woo hoo!

Look at all that yummy garlicky goodness in that bowl! Yummmm!

Sprinkle a healthy amount of salt and pepper into the bowl.

Next, you’ll zest your lemon into the small bowl. 

Zest the whole lemon into the bowl — that’s where all the deliciousness is, y’all. 

Have you ever heard of a lemon cheek?? 

It’s when you slice a ‘cheek’ off of the lemon, leaving the seeds behind.

Did you know the seeds are what make lemons bitter sometimes?? You’re in a restaurant, they bring you a lemon slice, and seeds get squeezed in? Halfway through the glass of water, the water seems bitterly lemon… SEEDS!

Squeeze the core of the lemon (the part left from slicing lemon cheeks!) through a mesh sieve, letting the sieve catch all the seeds.

You want a tablespoon or so of lemon juice, no need to measure, but this is what thins out your dressing.

Stir all this up, and let it hang out for a few minutes.

After a few minutes, you can taste the dressing for a ‘salt check.’ 

Next, let’s chop up the iceberg salad:

Here’s a head of iceberg lettuce!

Cold.

Crunchy.

Ready for dressing.

You’ll cut around the core, and you want to cut it into ‘shrettuce’ – shredded lettuce. 

Here is a big bowl of shrettuce! Yum!

This next step is what separates the amateurs from the pros:

Take one of your lemon cheeks, and squeeze it over the lettuce shreds.

Sprinkle some salt and grind some pepper over top.

Then toss, toss, toss, toss, and toss some more.

This early addition of acid, salt, and pepper is what really gives this salad life. 

Now, take a big plop of the lemon, garlic dressing and drizzle it over the lemony lettuce.

Toss, toss, toss, toss, toss, toss, toss, toss

Slice up some cucumbers and carrots and add some pickled shallots. 

Toss again — does this remind you of the steakhouses that make the caesar salads table side?? 

Sprinkle pickled shallots on top, and you are ready to serve!

This is where you can get creative.

Add croutons if you’re into that.

Maybe bacon is your fancy? You know the best bacon is mine!

Recipe Tips:

If you’re taking this on the go, leave it undressed. Bring the lemon, salt, pepper, and dressing in separate containers and dress it before serving. Not only will you look super posh in front of your friends, but you can also teach them all your secrets for making salads worth repeating.

This dressing keeps for up to a week in an air-tight container, in the fridge. 

Have leftovers?

If it’s the next day, you can get away with tossing a  bit of shredded iceberg into the leftover salad. This would be the best time to add more cucumbers, carrots, croutons, and any other salad accouterments you’d like.

This salad pairs well with Cheese and Pasta in a Pot! The delicious pasta bake is the perfect main dish to this garlicky salad recipe.

Save this to your favorite salad board on Pinterest!

Print

What salads do you love you can’t stop eating them?! Let me know in the comments below!