Farmers Market Vegetable Salad

Farmers Market Vegetable Salad is a chunky chopped veggie salad with a tangy tarragon/anchovy/lemon vinaigrette. Hit the market, raid your garden, or clear out the fridge, this is a summer must-make.

One of the little moments I look forward to every summer is the appearance of the first yellow wax beans. You have to understand that it’s taken me decades to shrug off the memory of the squeaky wax beans from a can that my mom served ALL the time. With every squeaky bite you’d get a squirt of the canning liquid. Yuck.

Once I realized there was an actual fresh, delicious version of wax beans, I’ve been obsessed with them. I always try to have a plan in place so when I spot them every summer I can whisk them home and immediately set to making something amazing.

I make lots of mixed vegetable and bean salads in the warmer months, and to keep them from becoming boring I challenge myself to come up with a distinctive dressing for each one. This one is a tarragon/anchovy/lemon vinaigrette that I think you’ll like. I use my immersion blender to blitz it into a creamy emulsion. Leave out the anchovy if you’re not into fish, or vegetarian.

I loaded this salad up with color, but in all honestly it was a clean out the fridge salad, so feel free to improvise. The fresh beans are the stars, and I think the corn adds a needed sweetness. The feta gives it substance, and the olives and marinated peppers give it zing. Other than that, add what you like.

All my veggies are raw except the beans ~ be sure to blanche them, it makes all the difference, it brings out their color and sweetness. And I have a heavy hand with the dressing in this case, the veggies marinate in it and soak up the flavor. Be sure to give it a toss just before serving to redistribute the dressing.

Also try ~

Chopped Asparagus Salad ~

It’s fun to feature seasonal veggies in chopped salads…try broccoli or summer squash, too.

Israeli Chopped Salad~

This classic salad is often served with the vegetables chopped in a very small dice, which helps them absorb the dressing all the better.

Rainbow Chard Salad~

This is a delicious way to use a surplus of garden or csa chard!

Farmers Market Vegetable Salad

3.50 from 38 votes

Farmers Market Vegetable Salad is a healthy chopped vegetable salad with a tarragon/anchovy/lemon vinaigrette ~ a great side dish for all your summer meals.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Rate Recipe

Prep Time:20 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 servings

1x2x3x

Ingredients

 

• 1 pound trimmed green and wax beans, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 cup finely diced red onion
• 1/2 cup assorted color bell peppers, diced
• 1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 small pickling cucumber, chopped
• an ear of corn, steamed and kernels removed
• 1/3 cup marinated peppers, I used little red bird's beak peppers
• 1/3 cup olives, halved
• 1/2 cup crumbled or chopped feta cheese

dressing

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp honey
• 2 Tbsp tarragon leaves
• 1-2 anchovies, or 1 tsp anchovy paste
• salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions

• Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl.
• Put the dressing ingredients in a wide mouthed mason jar or small bowl and use an immersion blender to blend until it is emulsified. Taste to adjust any of the ingredients to your own preference.
• Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Notes

 

• Make it simpler ~ I think this would be lovely with just the blanched green beans and the dressing.

NEW FEATURE! Click here to add your own private notes.

Course: Salad

Cuisine: American

Author: Sue Moran

Keyword: farmers market, healthy, salad, summer, vegetables, vegetarian

Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators.  Although The View from Great Island attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.

Did You Make This?We love seeing what you've made! Tag us on social media at @theviewfromgreatisland for a chance to be featured.