Winter salads: 3 tasty ideas to warm up your table

When we think of salads, we often imagine light, crispy summer dishes. Indeed, with the right ingredients and a good mix of seasonal baby leaf, even winter can become the perfect opportunity for balanced, warm and light recipes.

OP Isola Verde baby leaf salads, grown all year round in over 280 hectares of greenhouses across northern and southern Italy, are the ideal ingredient for delicious winter salads, perfect even for the coldest months.

Rich in vitamins and antioxidants, varieties such as baby spinach, lamb’s lettuce and blonde baby lettuce not only withstand low temperatures, but also provide the perfect base for creating salads that warm up the table (and the palate!).

In this article, three types of winter salads full of flavour and ready in just a few minutes are shared.

• 120 g lamb’s lettuce
• 2 Williams pears
• 120 g Parmesan shavings
• 50 g walnut kernels
• Extra virgin olive oil to taste
• Balsamic vinegar to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

Wash lamb’s lettuce thoroughly and dry it gently to keep the leaves fresh and soft. Then peel the pears, remove the core and cut them into thin slices.

Place the lamb’s lettuce, pears and coarsely chopped walnut kernels in a large bowl.

Dress with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a few drops of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper, mixing gently so as not to damage the leaves.

Top the salad with the Parmesan shavings and serve immediately. The result is a delicious dish, in which the sweetness of the pears, the savoury flavour of the Parmesan and the crunchiness of the walnuts come together in perfect balance, ideal for a light but super tasty winter salad.

• 500 g fresh button mushrooms
• Blonde baby lettuce to taste
• 100 g Parmesan shavings
• 1 clove of garlic
• Extra virgin olive oil to taste
• White vinegar 1 tablespoon
• Salt to taste

Carefully clean the button mushrooms and slice or dice them, depending on the texture you prefer. Put them in a bowl and add the blonde baby lettuce.

Add the finely chopped garlic, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar, then mix thoroughly.

Top the salad with the Parmesan shavings and salt to taste. Et voilà! Your salad is ready to serve!

The result? A delicious dish where the delicate, earthy flavour of the mushrooms meets the fresh note of the blonde baby lettuce, for a simple but flavourful dish that is also perfect in winter.

• 1 pumpkin
• 3 apples
• 150 g baby leaf mix
• 170 g feta cheese
• 70 g pecans
• 40 g dried cranberries
• Extra virgin olive oil to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

Dice the pumpkin into cubes and bake it in the oven with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt until it is soft and lightly browned.

Leave it to cool, then transfer it to a bowl together with the salad mix and thinly sliced apples. Add the crumbled feta, pecans and dried cranberries.

Dress with oil, salt and pepper to taste, mixing gently before serving.

The result is a winter salad with an enveloping flavour, in which the sweetness of pumpkin and apples blends harmoniously with the savoury note of feta and the crunchiness of baby leaf, for a dish rich in harmonious contrasts and perfect for warming up the table even in the coldest months.

Baby leaf salads are not just a summer ingredient: thanks to greenhouse growing techniques and quality control, OP Isola Verde guarantees supplies all year round, even in the coldest months.

Choosing our baby leaf salads means bringing freshness, health and flavour to the table in every season.