I love salads which is obviously perfect for this time of year but actually, I eat them all year round. People tend to think of them as summer dishes only but why limit yourself I say? I tend to just add healthier dishes like vegan baked potato  in the colder months so that I get that warm filled feeling but I absolutely wouldn’t say no to a great salad at any time of the year!

Sainsbury’s recently go in contact with me to let me know I’m not alone in my salad loving ways as they are noticing a massive upturn in sales of vegetables, with Avocado (147%), asparagus spears (118%), broccoli (40%), courgettes (30%) and bunched beetroot (25%) leading the way. All absolute staples for brilliant salads I say! Because they wanted to inspire the nation into getting more creative with their vegetables they have teamed up with food artist Amber Locke (RawVeganBlonde who has over 100k followers on Instagram) to create some gorgeous summer salads and they challenged me to make one too.

Well… I’m not a vegan so I decided to create a salad with one of my favourite salad ingredients ever, hot smoked salmon! You can buy really lovely juicy smoked salmon fillets from the Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference range and because they are only lightly smoked they’re not too powerful which is really what you need in a salad. I make a dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar dressing to go with it and use whatever is cheap in the supermarket to bulk it out. This in turn makes the salad fit the season as right now it’s all about baby plum tomatoes, aspargus (British of course) and I just love baby corns so can#t resist them! I serve it over a mixed leafs with spinach and in the winter would add baby boiled potatoes and possible a bit of grilled goat’s cheese if I wanted something really hearty! But, for now it’s just lovely and fresh as is and the only slight bit of work, aside from baking the salmon which I do with a drizzle of oil and slices of lemon so that they come out just under done and finish off on the plate from the heat they carry, all you have to do is make the dressing.

To make the dressing use a tablespoon of Dijon mustard and the same volume of balsamic vinegar with the best quality Extra Virgin olive oil in Sainsbury’s and then season before shaking all together and pouring over the salad then finish off with bean shoots which are sold in the salad section of Sainsbury’s – yum!

Here’s my salad, what do you think? And what would you have in your best summer salad?

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