Everything Green Salad with Healthy Green Goddess Dressing

Healthy green goddess dressing blends avocado, fresh herbs, garlic, and lemon making our everything green salad a memorable trip to the Emerald City of sides.

There's no need to reserve this greenest of green sides for your next Shrek party. This salad comes together in a few minutes. You can even keep the greens crisping in the fridge while you grab your blender and whip up the avocado goddess dressing.

Do we really need to discuss a green salad?

Nearly everyone who’s pursued a goal of eating ‘healthier’, have earnestly (at least in their own head) the vow to eat more salads. I’ve been there too (several times). I kept failing because it was boredom on steroids too time-consuming to rectify. Well, I told myself it was too time-consuming. Then I face 2 indisputable side salad facts:  

First, great salads require tasty dressings.

Second, even a simple, 4-ingredient salad deserves fresh and tasty ingredients.

If you’ve faced the simple salad doldrums or you' want to expand your salad repertoire, this short side discussion is for you.

What’s in this everything green salad? 

4-green ingredients. That's not the kitchen sink. It's meant to be a side dish. And ultimately, the bowl is all yours, so you can add, substitute, and create to your heart’s desire. But let’s have a quick look at my basics: lettuce, cucumber, sugar snap peas, and scallions (green onions). Too simple. And that’s the idea – this is a side salad with a creamy dressing. It’s intended to be crisp and refreshing.

A salad like this also serves as a balance for heavier or spicier main dishes. And because it’s not the main, we want to strike a balance between the ‘usual’ and something with a bit of pizzazz.

Quick lettuce guide

Personally, I loathe the experience of digging into a salad loaded with dressing for the first few bites only to have it disappear midway through. There’s a pretty simple solution to this – mix the dressing throughout the entire salad before serving. Well, duh.

But there are a few considerations of note.

Getting dressings, especially oil-free dressings to cling to lettuce, can be a bit challenging. For this reason, you want to start with super dry greens. After you wash and either tear or chop your lettuce, be sure to lay it on a few paper towels and pat it dry with another. It’s also a great excuse to dig out the salad spinner and have a bit of fun (my kind of fun anyway). Want to engage or entertain kids for a few minutes? Nothing better than a spinner.

It's most efficient to use your hands to mix in the dressing. For this reason, I recommend using hearty lettuce. This isn’t quite a kale massage (although you can use kale for this). Head lettuce (iceberg) or robust leaf, such as Romaine, stand up longer when the dressing is applied.

Keeping to the green theme and because they are crunchy goodness, sugar snap peas are an exceptional addition. No, they are not just reserved for Chinese foods. Snap peas can be eaten raw or cooked. I find that 2 minutes in a basket steamer brightens them up without losing crispness.

Alternatively, you can par-boil the pods. To do this, add them to boiling water for 90 seconds. Whether you steam or boil them, you want to immediately run cold water over them to stop the cooking process. Don’t cut the heat an leave them in the steamer. They will continue cooking and lose their snap.

Salad ready? Get to the good part – the dressing.

What is Green goddess dressing?

The goddess of dressings is a California classic (think San Francisco, 1923). The green part comes from a variety of fresh herbs, and the thickness is a factor of mayonnaise and oil with optional anchovies for a savory taste. We already know that the idea of those last three ingredients doesn’t fit with our plant-based goals, so let’s make a healthier version that doesn’t require opening a can of dead fish.

This avocado goddess is made for the blender or food processor. It’s just a matter of cutting the avocado in half, removing the pit, and scooping out the avocado flesh. We’re going for full green by including basil, parsley, chives, and green onions (including the green parts). The rest of the flavor comes from a few cloves of garlic and black pepper. The lemon juice adds a zesty taste and helps to preserve the avocado.

Blend all the ingredients and then decide if you need to thin it out. This depends on how much moisture is in your avocado and herbs. You can then add a bit of water or more lemon juice if you want to make it tarter.

If you intend to mix the goddess into the salad before serving, then a bit on the thicker side is better. It will cling to the lettuce and veggies and not accumulate in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl. Besides, if you dress it, then there’s no fighting over that last dollop of dressing.

In testing this recipe, I am happy to report that when we ate leftover salad a day later, it was still bright, cheery, and fresh. The Romaine, cucumber, snap peas, and scallions all stayed crisp, and the dressing was not discolored. That makes this healthy salad a great take-along or something that could be added to a wrap for a quick lunch.

Final thoughts

Refreshing green salads might not be the centerpiece of your meal, but with a couple of tweaks and dressings, simple can be the standout. You aren’t reinventing the world of salads. Just adding a few lightly steamed sugar snap peas, a healthy, herby green goddess dressing, or dressing before dinner. Effortless actions that create the illusion of spending time on a side with folks asking for more and leaving the table feeling satisfied and just a bit more renewed. And the winner of the side salad standoff? It gets to be you and your diners. Peace.

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