Sunshine Salad

This quick and easy Sunshine Salad is aptly named for the brightness of its homemade lemon dressing. It’s a crunchy, delicious addition to your weeknight meals. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes can easily be replaced with any fresh vegetables you have on hand.

Sunshine Salad

This quick and easy Sunshine Salad is aptly named for the brightness of its homemade lemon dressing. It's a crunchy, delicious addition to your weeknight meals. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes can easily be replaced with any fresh vegetables you have on hand.

Yield: 6 side servings

Ingredients

  • 1 lb lettuce, such as Mini Romaine Bronze Lettuce
  • 1 lb grape tomatoes
  • ½ bunch green onions, chopped
  • 1 cucumber, peeled, halved, seeded, and sliced
  • 4 to 6 small radishes, thinly sliced
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • Juice of 3 lemons (about ½ cup)
  • 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
  • ½ cup olive oil

Instructions

  • Tear lettuce into bite-size pieces. Combine with tomatoes, green onions, cucumber, and radishes in a medium-size bowl and toss lightly.
  • To make the dressing, pour lemon juice into a non-reactive container with a lid, such as a canning jar. Add minced garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil, then shake vigorously to combine. Just before serving, pour dressing over the salad and toss to coat.
Sunshine Salad Recipe
Sunshine Salad (Photo by Allen Smith)

Featured Ingredient: Lettuce

Lettuce usually takes a back seat to other ingredients that stand in the spotlight — but it deserves a starring role! There are so many different varieties of lettuce, providing a wide range of flavors, textures, and colors. These can add quite a bit of interest to even the simplest salad or sandwich. Lettuce contains valuable nutrients such as vitamin A, potassium, and dietary fiber. If you grow only one vegetable other than tomatoes, it should be lettuce. Growing lettuce is so easy, takes up little space, and you can even grow it among flowers. Learn how to grow lettuce in your own garden.

Lettuce growing in wide rows
Grow lots of lettuce in a wide bed packed tightly with rows. Wide beds, where lettuce grows close enough to take up all the space, result in a lot of lettuce per square foot of garden space.