This is the simplest recipe you can make when craving for a fresh salad on a hot summer day. It’s extremely easy to prepare and you might even have all the ingredients at hand already

It’s a very typical Mediterranean bean salad recipe. A very good basic you’ll be able to play with. Try replacing vinegar by lemon juice, add chopped cilantro, parsley and small chives and you’ll get into a whole new world!

Preparation time: 5 minutes – Refrigeration time: 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1 can (15 oz/ 425 g) of white navy beans
1 medium sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 red onion

Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel red onion. Dice it finely. Plunge onion dices into a glass of water. (Before using raw slices of onion in a salad, you should always plunge them into fresh water for a while so they don’t taste too strong.)

2/ Wash and dry red and green pepper. Remove the core, pith and seeds. Dice pepper.

3/ Rinse and drain white beans.

4/ In a salad bowl, combine white navy beans, onion, red and green pepper. Season with salt and toss ingredients together.

5/ Prepare vinaigrette: In a small bowl, pour vinegar and oil. Stir energetically until vinaigrette is homogeneous. Add salt and pepper and stir again.

6/ Sprinkle two pepper and bean salad with vinaigrette. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Serve cold.

Watch out, fabulous entrée recipe coming out! Ok, there are a lot of weird ingredients involved but they can easily be replaced. Kumatoes are a brown kind of tomatoes. They taste a little sweeter than regular tomatoes but f you can’t find any, you’ll be fine with tomatoes. Same story for the purple basil, any fresh basil leaves would do the trick

It’s fresh, tasty and full of vitamins. Perfect for spring time!

Preparation time: 15 minutes    –   Cooking time: 2 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

7 oz (200 g) of cooked shrimps
4 oz (120 g) of fresh baby spinach leaves
8 green asparagus
2 tomatoes kumato

Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar (you can also use balsamiq if you like)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of honey
1/2 teaspoon of crushed cilantro seeds
10 to 15 purple basil leaves
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Fill 2/3 of a large pan with water, add some salt and get it to a boil.

2/ Wash and dry spinach leaves thoroughly. Pinch off the stems.

3/ Pour asparagus into boiling water and leave them in for 2 minutes.

4/ Peel shrimps. Set aside.

5/ Rinse and dry tomatoes kumato. Take off the hard part curving with a knife. Slice them.

6/ In 4 individual plates, share out spinach leaves, kumato slices and shrimps. Top each plate with 2 asparagus.

7/ Rinse and dry purple basil leaves. Cut them into thin stripes with scissors dropping some on each plate.

8/ Prepare vinaigrette: In a small bowl, pour vinegar, oil and honey. Stir energetically until vinaigrette is homogeneous. Add crushed cilantro seeds, salt and pepper and stir again.

9/ Sprinkle a pinch of salt and dash vinaigrette on top of each plate. Serve right away.

The other day, I was served a similar salad at a restaurant. It was made with white cabbage and green apple. It’s been a wonderful discovery, I loved it. It was so refreshing and flavorful! I loved the fact that it was so crunchy and juicy… Long story short, I decided to make more green apple salads from now on

Chicory (the Belgian endive kind) is great in salads. Whether it’s served natural or with walnuts and blue cheese, I’m a big fan of it. It sounded perfect to help me recreate the freshness I enjoyed so much in the cabbage salad. This is how these two ended-up together!

This green apple and Belgian endive salad is seasoned with basil and an old fashioned mustard and raspberry vinaigrette. Wonderful fruit flavors, slight mustard taste and tons of juice each time it crunches under your teeth… Enjoy!

Preparation time: 7 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

2 Belgian endives
1 green apple
2 tablespoons of chopped basil
3 tablespoons of olive oil (click here to buy online)
1 tablespoon of raspberry vinegar (click here to buy online)
1/2 teaspoon of old fashioned mustard (click here to buy online)
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/  Rinse and dry endives. Take off the first leaves if they don’t look good. Cut off the hard part and carve a 1/2 inch cone into the end of the stem. Slice endives.

2/ Peel and cut apple into thin strips. (This technique is called Julienne or matchstick cut, it adds texture to the salad.)

3/ Combine endives, green apple and chopped basil in a salad bowl.

4/ Prepare vinaigrette in a smaller bowl: pour raspberry vinegar first, then add olive oil and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. (If you pour olive oil first, elements won’t mix well with each other. Here is the secret to a great vinaigrette… Easy, huh )

5/ Add a pinch of salt on the salad, pour vinaigrette and toss.

6/ Serve right away in small individual bowls or ramekins.

Here is a perfect summer salad recipe: very fresh and tasty. Mangoes and shrimps combination is close to perfection . I didn’t discover it long ago but I know I’ll be trying lots of dishes with these two…

Preparation time: 10 mn

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

14 oz (400 g) of cooked shrimps
7 oz (200 g) of Portobello mushrooms
1 mango
1 lettuce
1 red onion
1 lime
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel and chop onions. Squeeze 1/2 lime in a glass and pour onions slices into juice. Leave it so it marinates.

2/ Peel shrimps.

3/ Peel and chop mushrooms. (Peel mushrooms by taking off the white ’skin’ they have on top and cutting their bottom end. If you wash them they’ll get soaked in water)

4/ Peel and dice mango.

5/ Wash and dry lettuce thouroughly. Cut big leaves and pour into a big salad bowl.

6/ Add shrimps, mushrooms, mango dices, marinated onion with its lime juice, salt and pepper.

7/ Add juice from the remaining half of the lime along with olive oil.

8/ Mix well, try it and adjust seasoning according to your own taste.

I love making brunch on week-ends. You get out of bed too late to have breakfast and still be hungry at noon. Or you get up at noon, it’s too late to call it breakfast but you’re still not ready to have lunch . This soft cooked egg and bacon salad is a perfect brunch recipe but, of course you can have it with any other meal! I usually skip mustard in the seasoning sauce when I make it in the morning, it’s less aggressive when you just woke up!

Preparation time: 10 mn  Cooking time: 10 mn

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

4 eggs
4 slices of bread
3 1/2 oz (100 g) of bacon
3 1/2 oz (100 g) of corn salad (you can also use arugula if you prefer)
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard (Click here to buy online)
1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper

Instructions

1/ Preheat oven to 410° F (210° C / Th 7).

2/ Get water to a boil in a saucepan.

3/ Brush bread slices with olive oil (3 tablespoons) and bake in oven for 5 minutes on each side.

4/ When water is boiling, add eggs carefully. (I usually put the egg in a tablespoon, it’s much easier to get it gently to the bottom of the saucepan). Leave them in boiling water for 4 minutes. When they’re done rinse them with cold water and leave aside.

5/ Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add bacon slices. Cook for 3 minutes on each side, or until bacon looks crispy.

6/ When bacon is done, leave it in a plate covered with a napkin to drain its fat.

7/ Dice bread and cut bacon into pieces.

8/ Squeeze lemon in a bowl and whisk mustard, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper with it.

9/ In 4 plates, arrange corn salad, bacon and bread pieces. Serve on top lemon sauce.

10/ Carefully remove egg shells and place a soft cooked egg on top of each plate. Break it for the egg yolk to flow.

11/ Serve right away.