This salad is spring on a plate! Blanched asparagus gets tossed with sweet basil oil, peas, radishes, chickpeas, and pistachios. I balanced the crisp veggies with creamy mozzarella, although sliced avocado would be equally delicious in this spring salad if you’re vegan.
Spring Salad Recipe Variations
Like most green salad recipes, this one is totally flexible. For extra crunch, try roasting the chickpeas. If you don’t have pistachios on hand, pine nuts or walnuts would be equally good. Blanched broccolini or snaps peas would be great alongside or instead of the asparagus and peas, and you could use watermelon radish in place of red radishes. And if basil or mint isn’t your thing, try substituting dill!
This is a great make-ahead salad – perfect for your spring picnics & brunches. The veggies will stay crisp overnight in the fridge, just add the salad greens as you’re ready to serve.
If you loved this spring salad recipe…
Make sure to try this grilled asparagus salad, this kale salad, and this broccoli pasta salad too!
- ¼ cup fresh basil or mix of basil and mint
- 1 small garlic clove
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus some zest
- 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more as desired
- Sea salt and fresh black pepper
- 1 bunch of asparagus, tender tops only
- ½ cup peas
- A few handfuls of salad greens
- ½ cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- A few sliced radishes
- ½ cup sliced mozzarella balls (vegan sub: avocado)
- Handful of chopped, toasted pistachios
- Handful of herbs: chopped basil, mint and/or chives
- Make the basil & mint oil: In a food processor, pulse together the herbs, garlic, lemon juice and zest, balsamic, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. Set aside.
- Prepare the salad: Chop your asparagus into 1-inch pieces. Blanch them for about 45 seconds in a pot of boiling, salted water. Remove immediately and transfer asparagus to a bowl of ice water. Let cool, then drain. (If you’re using fresh peas, blanch the peas as well, if you’re using frozen ones, just let them thaw and add them to your salad raw).
- In a large bowl toss together the blanched asparagus, peas, salad greens, chickpeas, radishes, and mozzarella. Add as much of the dressing as you like and toss again. Add the pistachios, chives, and mint. Taste and adjust seasonings. Transfer the salad to a platter and serve.
- This salad can be made up to a day in advance, just leave out the salad greens until you’re ready to serve.
That is so funny, before I even started reading the post I was thinking how beautiful that bowl was, and I was wondering where you had gotten it from! Mystery solved! This salad looks so springy and fresh and I love your basil mint oil 🙂
ha 🙂
Blue and white is just such a beautiful color combination for anything kitchen related!
This looks positively dreamy. I wonder if it’d be good with a dollop of hummus in place of the chickpeas. Nothing gets on my nerves like trying to eat a chickpea with a fork.
you can leave the chickpeas out :). Sub in another protein or whatever you like!
Ugh I’m already addicted to kitchenware so being introduced to a new place is such bad news…the basil and mint oil dressing sounds intriguing!
The perfect summer salad, yes indeed! You had me at asparagus, though I love the addition of pistachios also, yum!
This looks great! I love green peas in my salad – they’re my favorite addition! Yum!
This salad make me miss summer in Aussie. Those bright green and blues of that beautiful plate makes this the perfect salad.
What fun patterned plates. And I’m loving your basil and mint oil and pistachio addition. I never think of making salads ahead but this really is the perfect one for it.
thanks Katie! I don’t normally either but the leftovers on day 2 were so delicious 🙂
I love how green this salad is. Just today, I picked up a whole load of asparagus in literally every color so this will be fun. I also love the addition of prep wine, my kinda lady 😉
ha, I was waiting for someone to notice the prep wine 🙂
Love this salad and am going to make it next week!! Thank you!
So many good salads from you lately! All gorgeous, and this one makes my mouth water!
I’m obsessed with salads (good hearty ones)!
The look and color of this salad go perfectly well with the plate. A very nice choice of recipe. I am a big fan of crunchy asparagus and aromatic herbs. This dish sounds amazing to me. 🙂
Such Spring perfection, my heart sings! Very excited about that dressing too, what a wonderful idea!
So much green!! This is such a fun salad 🙂
I love all of these colors. I am pretty sure I would feel super healthy after eating a bowl of this salad.
Love peas in salad. This look so good.
This is simply salad perfection. Love the pictures and the salad looks really beautiful on that dish. So great, thanks!
This is my kind of salad! The vibrant colors look stunning against the dinnerware.
Ha, prep wine is an important part of every balanced diet! This kind of salad is exactly what I want to be eating right now.
Beautiful. Proving to everyone that healthy food can be attractive and delicious 🙂
Georgina x
http://bakeitblonde.blogspot.co.uk/
Really beautiful – just the colors of a perfect spring day. I’m so hungry for green things!
I find myself getting excited each time i visit your website! And with each recipe i say i can’t wait to try this… thx for being passionate about your food and sharing. This recipe like them all seems like a winner.
Oh, love those blue plates! So pretty. The salad is gorgeous, too! I’ve been putting radishes in everything lately.
Made this tonight for dinner with farmers market veggies and it was so, so good! Definitely going into our dinner rotation while the veggies are in season!
so glad you liked it!
One of the best salads ever. I used both Mozz and avocado and skipped the chick peas. Forgot to buy basil so used pesto. Perfect salad for our community Mother’s Day dinner!
so glad you liked it!
Hello I have a ASAP question cause I’m making this tonight for tomorrow …I wanted to know when you said to omit the salad greens overnight , did that include the dressing also? Wouldn’t it make the vegetables mush
You can toss it with the dressing, the asparagus, etc, will stay plenty crispy, but the greens would become soggy. (Or you can wait to add the dressing at the end, that’ll work too).
Hi Jeanine & Jack,
I can’t tell you how much I love your site. As a foodie… as a photographer, as a graphic designer AND as a wordpress fanatic… you are hitting all my buttons!
Love your recipes (after living in Istanbul for 2 years and Spain for 15 I put lemon juice on everything too) such variety! And, as a “pescatarian”, (I don’t eat land animals – I eat fish though…) your site delivers time after time.
Absolutely fantastic. Immense enjoyment.
Thank you.
Matt
Hi Matt – thank you! You’re so kind. This comment just made my day…
How many servings does this recipe make?
This is a beautiful and tasty salad. However, the photo was taken with no dressing on the salad. Just FYI.
I made this for Easter lunch yesterday, and it was wonderful! I had the leftovers for lunch today, and it was even better. This is the PERFECT Spring/Summer salad!
Hi Emily! Glad you loved this one, it’s one of my favorites for spring too 🙂
Hi. Beautiful salad. Will be making as party of my Easter dinner. Curious how many as written this serves?
Thanks.
Hi Jodi – it should serve 4 as a side. Happy Easter!
Great – thanks, Jeanine. Happy Easter to you as well!
This is honestly such a delicious salad… I knew it from looking at the ingredients. Only thing I did differently is doubled the dressing (because we like it saucy!) and used Boccochini cheese. Fresh herbs from my garden would be the only thing to make this salad better in my opinion but considering we had snow 2 weeks ago I’ll take some good organic grown ones… was such a hit at our Easter dinner!
How did you measure the basil and mint in the dressing? I’ll need to double it, too. Approximate amounts? Thanks.
Would love to know how to measure the amount of basil and mint for the dressing. Making it for company the first time…..sounds wonderful.
Hi Jeanne, about 1/4 cup in the dressing, more can go in the salad itself. I hope that helps!