Let me preface this with how I hated when people ordered salads… like we get it, you’re healthy and trendy… go play in traffic.
However, two salads have opened up my eyes to the salad world, which are the famous Original Chopped Salad found at The Stetson/The Gladly/Citizen Public House and the Wildflower Bread Company’s chopped salad here in Arizona.
Both of these are in the top 10 rotations of food I eat as they are so good and make me feel somewhat healthy. Both have their pros and I decided I would just combine the two then add my own ideas to improve them.
This salad isn’t exactly the quickest salad to make but it is well worth it and amazing if you want to impress someone. It’s great for a date, show your parents you can make more than mac n cheese or just want a tasty healthy meal for yourself.
This salad is the perfect combo of health, sour, crunch, soft sweet and succulent. I also recommend you put freeze-dried corn in everything… it is a game changer. Freeze-dried corn is a little hard to get but Amazon is best bang for your buck or Albertson’s also has it. 50% of the time Whole Foods and Sprouts will have it but none of the more basic places ever have it… c’mon Safeway, level up.
I prefer this salad with chicken and here is an amazing baked chicken recipe here or a sauteed chicken recipe here.
If you want to marinade your chicken and take it next level here are 5 amazing marinade recipes.
The salad also works great with salmon so here is delicious easy baked salmon recipe.

World's Best Chopped Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups Chicken or Salmoned cooked per these recipes
- 3 cups shredded arugula do not over Arugula like Wildflower does
- 1 1/2 cups pearled couscous add a tsp of some Mediterranean seasoning or all-purpose seasoning.
- 1 1/2 cups freeze dried corn
- 1 cup diced tomatoes
- 1/2 cup pepitas which were also just called pumpkin seeds in 2017
- 1/2 cup feta or asiago cheese
- 1/2 cup red pepper diced
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Optional
- 1/4 cup currants or dried cranberries I am not a huge fan of berries in my salads and Wildflower puts in too many so if you do add them just do 1/4 a cup but you can always add more.
Dressing
- I love a zesty Mediterranean with this recipe or any Greek or Italian dressing works
Make Your Own Dressing
- 1 cup fresh basil
- 1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise sub non-fat yogurt if want healthier
- 3-5 cloves garlic 2-3 tbsp of minced garlic, pending garlic preference
- 1.5 full juiced lemons
- 1/2 cup olive oil Optional olive oil salad dressing works great too
- 1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar or any vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Make your meat per instructions here & insert info on bake and sautee etc
- Give meat time to rest and cool all the way down, can even refrigerate after cooked.
- Make couscous per instructions and let cool down to be cold as well.
- Mix the pepitas, cheese and currants or cranberries together
- Dice tomatoes and mix them with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
- Shred or cut up arugula and dice red peppers.
- Layout all ingredients together on a plate or bowl as pretty as possible and take a picture.
- Dressing: combine all dressing ingredients into a food processor or blender.
GOES GREAT IN OR WITH:
- baked chicken recipe
- sauteed chicken
- grilled chicken
- salmon
- marinades
This looks delicious and easy to make, I am going to try this for sure!
Yes, it is soooo good! Never been a huge salad person but this one is one of my favorite foods!