Make-ahead Salad
 
Preparation time
Cooking time
Total time
 
This rainbow salad is a wonderful combination of griddled vegetables combined with crunchy fresh salad ingredients. The jar is tipped upside down a few times with the lid on, just before serving to allow all the ingredients to be dressed and then it is turned out. Benefits of this salad are that it is a wonderful salad that travels, prepared a day ahead this salad is a treat those who are time poor, a healthy pot luck addition, a wonderful salad to take to a picnic, ladies lunch or for a busy work day.
Marissa:
Recipe type: Salads
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Servings: 6-8
Ingredients
  • To be griddled
  • 1 aubergine or 20 slices, 1 cm thick
  • 2 baby marrows or 30 slices 1 cm thick
  • 3 Portabello mushrooms, sliced 1 cm. horizontally
  • Raw
  • 2 shallots, finely chopped
  • 3 medium-sized tomatoes
  • ½ cucumber cubed
  • 1 red pepper cubed
  • a handful of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
  • Dressing:
  • 31/2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 Tablespoon pomegranate molasses
  • 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
Method
  1. Tip
  2. Oil the pan, not the vegetables.
  3. Spray a griddle pan with oil, this reduces the amount of oil in the dish and produces a better char on the vegetables.
  4. If you have a larger griddle pan you can use that as it will speed up the cooking.
  5. Leaving space around each vegetable to avoid the vegetables from sweating.
  6. Griddle the vegetables until you have some lovely char marks on each side.
  7. Chop the onions, cucumber, tomatoes and red peppers into 2cm cubes and set aside.
  8. Add the dressing ingredients into the base of the jar and give it a little stir, add the tomatoes and onions, layer the aubergine on top of the tomatoes and dressing, press each layer down a little as you go, then add the courgettes, red peppers, cucumber, and finally the parsley.
  9. Pop the lid on and store in the fridge overnight.
  10. The next day just before serving, remove the salad jar from the fridge and turn the jar upside down a few times with the lid on.
  11. Using a large serving platter with a lip or bowl, turn the salad upside down, the bottom layers may need a little nudge with a fork to come out. Toss the salad with two spoons and enjoy.
Tips
The jar I used was 1 litre in capacity.
The dressing needed to be halved if you are not adding griddled vegetables that will soak up the dressing.

This can serve 6-8 as a side salad as part of a larger buffet and 4 as a very generous main course.

For a BBQ this will feed at least 8 people if you have another salad option too.
Recipe by Marissa's Recipes & Ideas at https://www.marissa.co/make-ahead-salad/