Better Than Olive Garden Salad
When You’re Home, You’re Actually WITH Family
Better Than Olive Garden Salad is exactly what it says it is: a salad that’s better than Olive Garden that you’ll love so much I would bet you will eat it weekly. One of the reasons it is so good is because it is so easy to make, as it’s secretly a doctored up bagged salad with a fancied up bottled dressing.
I highly recommend when you make this Better Than Olive Garden Salad that you get yourself a couple of boxes of breadsticks so that you can fully enjoy this experience. You can even go full “food blogger bod” and dip the breadsticks in the remaining dressing.
The recipe card is at the end of this post. You can print, save, or pin the recipe. I do have just a couple of paragraphs that show some of the ingredients I use to make this salad.
This is for those who may need just a little bit of extra information if they are not familiar.
Lunchtime Is In the Bag, Literally
To make this copycat Olive Garden salad, I use this Fresh Express American bagged salad kit. I like the mix of lettuce and the other vegetables in it.
You do not have to use this bagged salad kit to make this salad. Feel free to wash and cut your own lettuces and vegetables.
This salad is a quick shortcut and the mix is perfect for this recipe. This is not sponsored in any way, it is just a product I like to use for this recipe.
Keep It Zesty
You do not need to make your own salad dressing for this recipe. I use the Wishbone Zesty Robusto brand dressing with a few added ingredients.
I see the Zesty Robusto in every store as well as on Amazon. You will see on the recipe card that I call for an optional tomato powder.
There are also several varieties of tomato powder on Amazon. I use tomato powder in a lot of recipes.
You can peruse my recipes that use it by searching tomato powder on my site. You will really enjoy this salad dressing with the additions I have in the recipe card.
Keep It Cheesy
This salad has a lot of the finely grated Parmesan in the dressing and tossed in the salad. I top the salad with very large shreds of Parmesan.
When I say a lot, I mean a lot! The Parmesan shredded this way is SO good on this salad.
If you do not have a box grater to grate the cheese like this, you can also use a potato peeler. if you do not have a potato peeler, cut very thin slices with a knife.
If you do not have a knife, give up now.
Croutons Or Nah
I do not always put croutons on this Olive Garden Salad. When I do, I sometimes buy already made croutons or I make these really good Caesar Salad Croutons.
These croutons go SO WELL with this salad. You may also want to make the Caesar Salad recipe that goes along with the croutons!
Better Than Olive Garden Salad Recipe
If you are a fan of the Olive Garden Salad this is Better Than Olive Garden Salad. It has all the flavors and crunch of Olive Garden salad. All that is missing is the all you can eat breadsticks!
Ingredients
- 1 Fresh Express Bag Salad Kit, the American variety *pictured in post
- 1/2 cup of Green Olives (reserve 1 tablespoon of the olive juice)
- 1/2 cup of Banana Pepper Rings (reserve 2 tablespoons of the juice in the jar)
- 1 small Red Onion, sliced thin
- 8 to 10 Peperoncini Peppers *pictured in post
- 1 bottle of Wishbone Zesty Robusto Italian Dressing *pictured in post
- 1 teaspoon of Black Pepper
- 1 teaspoon of Celery Seed
- 2 teaspoons of Dried Oregano
- 2 teaspoons of Tomato Powder *optional
- 1/4 cup of very finely Grated Parmesan (powder parmesan) + 2 tablespoons
- 1 chunk of of Parmesan cheese (not shredded)
- 1/2 tablespoon of Dried Parsley
Instructions
- In a large salad bowl, add the sliced onions, olives plus the olive juice, banana pepper rings plus the juice from the peppers, and the black pepper, celery seed, oregano, and optional tomato powder. Toss really well to coat. Let this sit for one hour in the fridge, can also sit overnight covered in the fridge.
- Add your bottle of dressing to a separate bowl and add in 2 tablespoons of the finely grated or powdered Parmesan. Whisk really well to combine.
- When ready to serve, add the bagged salad to the marinating vegetables and toss well then add the 1/4 cup of finely grated Parmesan. Toss again to coat.
- Serve with the salad dressing, you can dress each bowl of salad or toss the whole salad with as much dressing is your preference.
- Grate the block of Parmesan into large slices or cut very thin slices. Top the salad with the Parmesan, the peperoncini, and the dried parsley.
- You can also top with croutons. There is a recipe for croutons linked in the post or you can buy ready made.