Squash Salad w/ Basil Vinaigrette

You all will soon discover a trend with most of my posts and I don’t mind admitting it. It’s okay to look in your fridge or walk through the farmer’s market and grab things without a plan. Some of the best meals are made with a quick thought and just going for it. If it doesn’t taste good, that’s okay, at least you know what might not work well together. We often get wrapped up in the ingredients and order, but cooking should be fun, let’s make it that way. This next recipe is fun and one that you can make your own by adding in different ingredients or making a different dressing.

Pretty soon we will have such a prethora of all types of squash. In an effort to prepare you what is about to come I thought I’d squash your fears and place this amazing summer salad in your repertoire. You don’t have to be a cook, or a fancy chef for this one. Although, you will impress a few folks. This is literally a no-cook salad, that means there’s no cooking involved.

Ingredients:

Salad:

1 Small or medium zucchini

1 Small or medium yellow squash

1 Small can of white corn (drained)

1/4 Cup of goat cheese or fresh mozzarella

1/2  Cup of halved cherry tomatoes

1/2 Thinly sliced pepper (red, orange, or yellow)

Dressing:

1/2 Cup of olive oil

1/2 Lemon juiced

Lemon zest from 1/2 lemon

2 Tbsp of freshly chopped basil

1 Tsp of Dijon mustard

1 Clove of garlic minced

Salt & Pepper to taste

With a peeler make peeled ribbons with the squash. Be sure to do this for the entire length of the squash. Once you get to the seeds or watery center rotate the squash. You’ll know when you get this this point because the ribbons will be super thin and you don’t want that as a part of this salad. I kept rotating until all that was left was the center seeded section. Place each ribbon into a medium sized bowl where you can mix. I only had zucchini this time, but you want to see a good mix of green and yellow in the bowl.

Next, add-in the drained corn, sliced peppers, sliced tomatoes, and cheese. You can get creative with the cheese at this point too. I thought about feta and goat cheese, but had a ball of mozzarella that I needed to use. Another good cheese here would be burrata.  Also, I meant to add-in some pine nuts at that point and forgot. This is where you can make this your own by adding additional ingredients whether it be peas, olives, nuts, etc.

Now onto my favorite part of this, the salad dressing. There’s a couple options here. You can mix all of the ingredients in a jar and be done or instead of chopping the basil throw the leaves along with the other ingredients into a food processor or Ninja. I put everything into my Ninja cup and processed it for a few seconds making it a nice green color. I also added a teaspoon of white wine vinegar because I wanted a little more tang with my dressing.

You only need to mix a few tablespoons of the dressing with the salad mix. I of course mixed a little more, but it all depends on your taste. Start out with a couple tablespoons and go from there. You will have dressing left over for future use. You can plate and eat this right away or let the ingredients marinate in the dressing for a few minutes to soak in the flavor. Either way enjoy this one!

I’d love to hear how you made this recipe your own. Let me know by commenting below or post a photo on the I Run This Kitch Facebook page. Can’t wait to see your pictures! Be sure to share this with your friends and family so they are prepared for the squash craze this summer.