Easy side salad with lemon dressing

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This easy salad with avocado, cucumber, radishes and fennel is the ultimate side salad and the lemon dressing is simple and delicious.

This side salad has become my go-to pretty much every day of the week. It’s featured alongside juicy lemon herb roast chicken, as part of a help-yourself dinner party with charcuterie and cheese platters and as a healthy side dish to easy grilled steak.

I know fennel isn’t something most people love and to be honest, I’m in that camp too. I’m not too crazy about its anise-flavor (even though I do like licorice). But, I have a found a way to mellow that flavor and make fennel absolutely delicious. By marinating the thinly sliced fennel in fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, the fennel loses its strong flavor. Instead, it adds gentle sweetness and a whole lot of crunch to this salad.

I marinated the fennel and radishes together and their marinade also becomes the dressing. The rest of the salad is made up of baby lettuce or salad leaves, sliced cucumber and avocado. I also crumbled in some feta cheese but if you’d prefer to keep this salad vegan, you can definitely leave it out.

What is a side salad?

A side salad is usually a simple green salad (made with a variety of lettuce/leafy greens, cucumber, tomato and sometimes onion) but can be any salad served with a main as a side dish.

What do you put in a salad?

Salads are incredibly versatile and are a great way to use up fresh vegetables. Any leafy green/lettuce can work as a base and can be topped with any fresh vegetable. From simple cucumber and tomato to thinly sliced carrots, peppers, sugar snap peas, radishes, fennel, celery, baby corn, onion (and green onion), green beans and avocado. Feta cheese, shavings of Parmesan or goat’s cheese are all excellent additions to a salad. You can also add berries, pomegranate or sliced stone fruit like plums and peaches to salads.

What to serve with salad

• Easy lemon herb roast chicken
• Mayonnaise grilled rosemary garlic steak
• Crispy chicken thighs on cheesy broccoli rice
• Corn flake-crusted chicken strips with honey-mustard dipping sauce

Side salad recipes

1. Marinated zucchini salad
2. Cucumber, tomato and red onion salad
3. Farmers market salad with buffalo mozzarella
4. Easy marinated cucumber salad