Simple Garden Salad with a Honey Mustard Dressing

It sure can be convenient to toss together salad greens into a bowl, walk over to the fridge, pick out your favourite pre-made salad dressing and generously drizzle it over…hold up just a second.

Store-bought salad dressings don’t always add much nutritionally or in the taste department, with many varieties filled with cheap processed ingredients and lacking in punchy flavour. Instead, whipping up your own homemade dressing is really easy!

Below is a recipe for a delicious honey-mustard dressing. A thin coating tossed with your salad will totally jazz it up.

Salad Dressing: a Win-Win for Taste Buds & Nutrient Absorption

A fun fact: while dressings primarily help make a dish taste better, they can also aid nutrient absorption too.

Certain nutrients, deemed fat-soluble vitamins (vitamin A, D, E and K), need the presence of dietary fat to be properly absorbed.

By adding a fat-rich food, like olive oil in your dressing to a salad, you’re encouraging the absorption of these nutrients!

Simple Garden Salad with a Honey Mustard Dressing

Author Danijela Armitage

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Serving Size: 4

Rating:

Pin Recipe Print Recipe

Ingredients:  

1x2x3x

Salad

• 5-6 cups salad greens
• 2 large or 4 small-medium tomatoes
• ½ regular or 1 small cucumber
• 1 green capsicum
• A small handful of sunflower seeds
• A sprinkle of sesame seeds

Honey mustard dressing

• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp runny honey
• 1 tsp mustard
• A pinch of salt and pepper

Method:

• Slice tomatoes into wedges, capsicum into thin strips and cucumber into coins. Aim to get everything relatively bite-sized so it's manageable to eat! Tear larger leafy greens into smaller pieces.
• Add all produce to a large salad bowl.
• Whisk/blend all ingredients for salad dressing together. Make sure to whisk well, so the ingredients emulsify together (i.e. so the oil and lemon juice aren't separated) – otherwise you'll get blobs of olive oil or acidic lemon juice on your salad greens, and it won't taste that nice. Taste test and adjust if desired (e.g. a little extra honey for sweetness).
• Dress the salad with the dressing to your liking – you may not need all of the dressing. Toss the dressing carefully with your salad, aiming to lightly coat, not drench, and if you have any leftover just pop it in the fridge for another salad over the next few days!
• Garnish salad with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Enjoy!

Notes:

Leftover dressing will keep in the fridge for up to a week.