Salad of Wild Herbs with Eggs & Olives Recipe

The sky’s the limit when it comes to putting together a wild herb salad. In most supermarkets, you can find interesting lettuces such as escarole, green cicorino, yellow-hearted frisée, arugula, romaine, and so much more. And if you head outside during the right time of year, you can find fresh tender dandelion and sorrel, which is exactly what this recipe calls for.

The Recipe

This is a super simple salad to prepare. For the salad itself, there are only a few ingredients; herbs, onion, hard-boiled eggs, and olives. For the vinaigrette, it’s just as straightforward; vinegar, oil, wine, garlic, and a few other things. This salad should only take a few minutes to put together. You’ll need to remember though, any salad can include olives and hard-boiled eggs. It’s the fresh herbs that need to be paid the most attention to here. If you live in the country and have access to an area in which dandelions grow, head outside during the early spring when the dandelion leaves are most tender and have yet to turn bitter. Pick as many as you can and throw them in your salad. They’re rather good. Really though, if you can’t get your hands on dandelion or sorrel, arugula, catalogna, and other type of herbs you don’t usually buy can be just as satisfying. The goal is to prepare something you wouldn’t necessarily prepare regularly.

I’d like to thank Carlo Bernasconi and Christian Teubner for this recipe. I found it in The Complete Italian Cookbook, which was written by them. Awesome book.

Ingredients

Serves 4

For the Salad
8 Ounces Young Dandelion Leaves
4 Ounces Sorrel
1/3 Cup Onion, Chopped
For the Vinaigrette
3 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Dry White Wine
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Garlic, Minced
6 Tablespoons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Also
2 Hard-Boiled Eggs, Chopped
1 Cup Black Olive, Pitted & Chopped

Prep the Ingredients

If you haven’t yet, chop the onion, hard-boiled eggs, and olives.

Make the Vinaigrette

In a medium sized bowl, combine the vinegar, wine, salt, garlic, and olive oil. Whisk these ingredients together well.

Toss the Salad, Plate, & Serve

In a large bowl, add the dandelion and sorrel. Then add the onions and half the vinaigrette. Toss these ingredients until the herbs are coated with the vinaigrette. Then, divide the salad between four plates or bowls and add some eggs and olives to each bowl. Then spoon the remaining vinaigrette over each salad and serve. Enjoy!