Marinated Vegetable Salad is a healthy, make-ahead salad recipe highlighting crunchy fresh vegetables. Quick, easy, and fresh!
“Excellent summer salad. This will get compliments at your next BBQ. Seriously.”
Marinated Vegetable Salad – let’s talk about it!
How I’m loving the lettuce-less-ness of it. How it’s not only bright, beautiful, and colorful, but crazy-healthy too. How it’s make-ahead! Yep, chop all your favorite vegetables before going to bed then toss with a simple homemade vinaigrette, refrigerate, and serve the next day.
How it’s sugar free. I love a good sweet and savory combo as much as the next gal, but when it comes to fresh vegetables? I gotta go savory. Many marinated vegetable salad recipes call for tossing the vegetables in a dressing that includes equal parts sugar and vinegar, but I just can’t get down with sweet cauliflower when I know how delicious it can be tossed in a tart and snappy dressing instead!
Watch How to Make It
Raw Vegetable Salad
Now, I’ve chosen to highlight my favorite raw vegetables in this Marinated Vegetable Salad including cherry tomatoes, cucumber, cauliflower, carrots, and bell pepper, but you could swap in any vegetables you happen to love and/or have growing in your garden.
Raw zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, sweet onion, celery, and/or corn would all make excellent additions to this easy, healthy dish.
Start by chopping up a big bowl o’ summer vegetables. Like I said, the variety is totally up to you as long as it adds up to roughly 10 cups (it’s a big salad!)
Pin this now to find it later
Pin ItI use 2 cups each cauliflower florets (about 1/2 medium-sized head,) carrots (roughly 4 medium carrots,) and cherry tomatoes (a 10oz package.)
Plus 1 cucumber that I seeded before chopping so the dressing wouldn’t get watery (use an English cucumber if you don’t want to scrape out the seeds,) plus 1 chopped bell pepper. I chose yellow for the beautiful color, but it’s totally up to you!
Last step is to drizzle on the super tart vinaigrette, which contains:
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Red wine vinegar
- Minced shallots
- Dijon mustard
- Italian seasoning
- Minced garlic cloves
- Salt
- Pepper
Shake the ingredients together in a jar or whisk in a bowl. Pour 3/4 of the vinaigrette over the vegetables then toss and stash in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 4 hours or up to overnight — it just gets better as it sits.
FYI this vinaigrette is very tart, which I happen to love. If it’s a little too tart for you, add more oil and/or honey to taste.
Just before serving, toss with the remaining vinaigrette then season with salt and pepper and you’ve got yourself an easy, healthy, fresh side dish that’s perfect for any day or occasion. Enjoy!
More Fresh and Healthy Salad Recipes
- Healthy Chickpea Salad
- Italian Quinoa Salad
- Fruit Salad Recipe for a Crowd
- Cucumber and Tomato Salad
- Jennifer Aniston Salad
- Chickpea Chicken Salad
- Italian Chickpea Salad
- Everyday Kale Salad
- Greek Chickpea Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups cauliflower florets
- 2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, ~10oz
- 2 cups chopped carrots, ~4 medium carrots
- 1 cucumber, seeded then chopped
- 1 bell pepper, any color, seeded then chopped
For the Vinaigrette:
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons minced shallots
- 4 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- salt and pepper
Directions
For the Vinaigrette:
- Add ingredients to a jar with a tight-fitting lid or bowl then shake or whisk to combine. Taste then add more salt, pepper, and/or oil if necessary (this dressing is very tart so add more oil if it’s too tart for your tastes.)
- Add vegetables to a very large bowl then dress with 3/4 of the vinaigrette. Toss then refrigerate for 4 hours or up to overnight. Toss with remaining vinaigrette and season with salt and pepper to taste just before serving.
Notes
- Use your favorite blend of fresh, raw vegetables — you’ll need 10 cups total.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are estimates only. Please read our full nutrition information disclaimer.
How long would this delicious looking salad last?
Usually 3-4 days for me!
Awesome! Thank you!
Trying to lose weight could this salad also have sliced squash? If I add the vinaigrette like the is in the instructions states would it last several days just for me to eat not a party
I’m going to a party and have been asked to bring some veggies so this is what I will bring! Way better then a boring veggie tray! I will make sure to also bring long toothpicks and cocktail napkins. Thanks for this!
Hi Kristin, this looks so good, but I kind of give the side-eye to uncooked cauliflower, and I feel like raw carrots can be aggressively crunchy for me. Do you think it would work to lightly roast those two veggies then let cool before tossing with the rest? Or do you think that would be an odd combo?
I might blanch then chill the vegetables if you want to take out some of the crunch factor. Roasted cauliflower is so, so delicious – I just don’t know if it’d pair very well with the acidic dressing.
This is *so* good! I used some pickled red onions instead of shallots in the vinaigrette and used some of the pickling liquid in place of about half the vinegar. Amazing! We just used a bunch of veggies from the fridge and they all taste great in the dressing so I think this will be on the menu weekly to use up odds & ends before they go bad. Any idea how long it’s good for in the fridge? I’m guessing at least 2-3 days?
Oooo – LOVE that swap, pickled onions are so yummy! And yep, the salad should still be good 3-4 days after making!
What a great idea with the pickled onions and pickling juice! I’m going to try this in other salad recipes, too.
LOVED loved loved this salad!! I made it last night and just at a HUGE bowl of it for dinner. It’s a new fave. It’s like pasta salad but better because there is no pasta in it! I loved it so much I had to share it on my blog! Thanks for another great recipe!!
Ahhh, so glad to hear, Jamie!! Thanks so much for the feedback! :)
This looks amazing! I’m such a veggie lover!
Jabeen x
http://www.spilling-the-beans.co.uk/
Yum! & What a great recipe idea!
This looks great! We have two potlucks this weekend, so this might work for one of them. By the way, it’s supposed to be very mild this weekend. Yippee!
Okay. So this is totally what I’m making as a side-dish tonight. Thanks Kristen MMM!!!!!!!
I hope you love it, Nancy!
This looks great, nice and light! And Happy Birthday!! :)
Thank you so much, Stephanie! So sweet! :)
Yes! The older I get the more I hate the sugar/vinegar salad dressings. Can’t wait to try this one!