This recipe is a part of our Salad on Sundays series.
Photos by Foxtails Photography
If you’ve spent any time perusing my Instagram feed, you will find that I have a bit of an obsession with flowers. The past couple of summers I have planted a small edible flower garden to experiment with. Using them as a pop of color in a simple green salad is one of the easiest ways to incorporate these little beauties into a recipe.
PrintEasy Green Salad with Edible Flowers and Honey Thyme Croutons
The easiest green salad recipe decorated with edible flowers freshly picked from the garden. Dressed in a light, summery champagne vinaigrette and topped with homemade croutons tossed in honey and lemon thyme for a unique and seasonal flavor.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 2
- Category: Lunch
Ingredients
For the Salad
- You choice of salad greens. I used a mixture of fresh lettuce, spinach and arugula.
- 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1–2 Tbs chopped chives
- 1/4 cup soft herb leaves, like basil, mint or lemon sage (optional)
- A handful of edible flowers, such as pansies and chive blossoms
For the Dressing
- 2 tbs good quality olive oil
- 1 tbs champagne vinegar
- 1/2 tbs lemon juice and zest from a half of a lemon
- 1/8 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp honey
For the Croutons
- 2 cups baguette bread, cubed
- 3 tbs olive oil
- 3 tbs honey
- leaves from 3 lemon thyme sprigs
- a heavy pinch of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Assemble the salad greens, red onion, herbs and chopped chives on a serving platter or in a large salad bowl.
- One the baguette has been cut into 1-inch cubes, add them to a bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until each crouton is golden brown and set aside to cool.
- Once the croutons have cooled, drizzle with honey and add the lemon thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Toss until each crouton is coated with honey and herbs.
- Add all of the vinaigrette ingredients into a bowl and whisk until completely mixed.
- Toss the salad with the vinaigrette and the croutons.
- Garnish the salad with the edible flower and serve immediately.
Notes
If you are making the salad ahead of time, skip adding the vinaigrette and croutons until right before serving to keep everything crisp.
Keywords: salad, green salad, champagne vinaigrette, croutons
If we are around on Sundays in the summer, I like to spend my early afternoons tending to the garden. There’s always something to harvest for easy summer salads, making this recipe a perfect candidate for our Salad on Sundays series. While I’m out, I snip what I need and head to the kitchen to put together a light and fresh early lunch. The edible flowers make this recipe feel special, but the homemade crouton recipe is really the best part.
How to Make Homemade Croutons
This is the most time consuming part of the salad, but it’s still extremely easy and totally worth it. Simply cut a fresh baguette into cubes and add the bread into a bowl. You can do this ahead of time and let the cubes dry, but it’s not necessary. If you’re making this on a leisurely Sunday I would skip that prep step and move on to drizzling the olive oil over the bread cubes. Add salt and pepper, bake for 20 minutes, and remove from the oven and let them cool before adding the remaining ingredients. After the croutons cool, add a good drizzle of honey and fresh lemon thyme leaves. Toss together until each piece is completely coated and add them to this summery green salad recipe.
Homemade Croutons Recipe
I love using homemade croutons in recipes rather than store-bought because you can control the amount of salt. You can also add your own ingredients for an extra layer flavor to your salad and soup recipes. Because this is a summer salad recipe, I wanted to incorporate flavors I always use during the season. Lemon thyme is something I constantly use this time of year. When it’s paired with honey it’s one of my favorite flavor combinations. I used this flavor combination earlier this summer in a blueberry galette recipe and this gorgeous French 75 cocktail recipe.
There are six total ingredients for these homemade croutons – bread, olive oil, lemon thyme, honey, salt and pepper. It takes about 20 minutes before the croutons reach their crispy, chewy state. So easy and so so yummy.
Edible Flowers for Salads
There are quite a few varieties of edible flowers, and pansies may be the most well-known. They each have their own unique flavor, some being better than others in a recipe for green salad. I have an abundance of pansies in our edible flower garden, which is mainly why I chose to feature them in this recipe. Their colors are beautiful and they give a typical green salad recipe more life. For some other edible flower suggestions for salads, check out this list by Earth.com.
