High Summer Lunch Salad
This substantial lunch salad brings together peak summer tomatoes and pluots with protein-rich mung beans and a simple vinaigrette. Fried shallots and pistachios bring the crunch, while rings of banana pepper add a bit of kick and a pop of color!
Multiple times a year I look around and declare that this is my favorite time of year to cook. I love it in the winter when citrus season peaks. I love it when fava beans are the brightest green with the silkiest, creamiest texture (before they go too starchy). And I love it when the pluots are sweetest and the heirloom tomatoes most concentrated. This was the feeling I had earlier in the week when I got home from the farmers’ market with the most inspiring ingredients I’ve had in years. I wrote everything down in a list —lemongrass, banana peppers, fresh cranberry beans, baby romaine, etc.. — and then started daydreaming about what I might make. The first thing was this summer-maxxing lunch salad. I tapped my pantry for mung beans, whisked together a simple vinaigrette, and then assembled everything into a wildly colorful, substantial salad where every bite is a bit different.
High Salad Lunch Salad: Ingredients
The key here is assembling peak everything. If the tomatoes where you are look a little sad, skip them and bump up one of the other ingredients. Or, swap in another ingredient you love - this salad is very forgiving.
- Tomatoes: My neighbor Emily tipped me off to just how good the Green Zebra tomatoes were this week, and she was spot on. I love their concentrated flavor and beautiful lime green and yellow striped markings. Keep an eye out for heirloom tomatoes where you are, and go for the ones with the best flavor.
- Pluots: I love the complexity of a perfect, ripe pluot, and while a lot of people I know wait for peach season, I'm actually team pluot. You can use either here.
- Crispy Shallots: A lot of people buy these, but I like to make my own. Fry thinly sliced shallots in a good amount of oil until deeply browned, then use a spider to transfer them to a paper towel. It's one of the assertive elements that also brings crunch and savoriness to this salad.
- Banana Peppers: Keep an eye out! I love their color and mild bite and spiciness. If you can't find them and like bell peppers, swap in some yellow or red bell peppers. Quite different, but reasonable!
- Vinegar: The vinegar here is important and should taste delicious. I've been using a red wine vinegar that is agrodolce - a bit sweet, but still plenty acidic (it's this one). If you don't have an agrodolce vinegar, consider adding a bit of honey or sugar to your vinaigrette to round it out a bit. Just enough to get it to your liking.
A few of the other ingredients and flowers that were at the market at the same time. On the ingredient front there were: perfect carrots, yellow beans, fresh cranberry beans, shallots, lemongrass, and some little lettuces hiding in there. Marigolds made an appearance after weeks and weeks of show-stopping dahlias. It's one of the first things I notice as we round the corner into fall.
High Summer Lunch Salad: Serving Ideas
I served this salad basically as a meal on its own, with a bit of Zanzibari Sesame Flatbread from The Food of Oman (page 177), published in 2015. Sidenote: this is a wonderful book that Ken at Now Serving turned me on to a few years back. The flatbread has a rich coconut milk dough, and I've been making variations of it ever since I brought the book home. It seems like the book might be out of print, but poke around for a used copy - they're out there. I also added a little plate of sheep's milk feta drizzled with olive oil, more of a creamy bonus than an essential.
As far as drinks go, I boosted some sparkling water with lemon, a bit of saffron, and plenty of ice, then called it a day.
More Summer Salads
- Coconut Corn Salad
- Cucumber Salad
- Grilled Wedge Salad
- Roasted Tomato Salad
- Spicy Sesame Coleslaw
- Pluot Summer Salad
- Summer Melon Salad
More Salad Recipes
- Nicoise Salad
- Raw Tuscan Kale Salad
- Summer Fruit Salad
- Egg Salad
- Quinoa Salad
- Apple Salad
- All salad recipes
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High Summer Lunch Salad
I use an agrodolce red wine vinegar here for the dressing, but if you have a red wine vinegar on hand that you like, just sweeten the dressing with a bit of honey or sugar in lieu of using (a sweet-ish) agrodolce vinegar. The mung beans are bought in bulk, and cooked from dried with no soaking. And I had some chive flowers to add here as well, you can look for chives bunches that have flowers at the farmers’ market.
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons great tasting red wine vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or to taste
- A few pinches of Aleppo pepper
- 2 cups cooked mung beans, warm
- 4-5 small heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 3-4 ripe pluots, pitted and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 3 banana peppers, sliced into 1/4-inch thick rounds
- 1/3 cup toasted pistachios, chopped
- 1 bunch chives, cut into 3/4-inch lengths
- 1/4 cup crispy fried shallots
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Vigorously whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and Aleppo pepper. In a separate bowl pour half of the dressing over the warm mung beans. Stir well and taste. If the mung beans taste like they could use some additional salt, add more salt a couple pinches at time until the beans taste great and are properly seasoned.
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On a large plate or platter arrange the dressed mung beans into 3 or 4 loose piles. Arrange the pluots and tomatoes in a similar way, overlapping ingredients a bit. Finish with little piles of the banana peppers before sprinkling the platter with the pistachios and chives. Drizzle with the remaining dressing, and top with the shallots.
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You can either toss before serving or allow people to assemble ingredients on their own plates.
Serves 4.
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