Big Yummy Italian Salad! with salami, pepperoncini, two kinds of cheese, garlic fried panko, and a mindless dressing in every salad crevice. This recipe is sponsored by DeLallo! ♡ In This Post Jump To The Recipe Why I Love This Recipe Visual Walk-Through of the Recipe Video Frequently Asked Questions Ratings This Big Italian Salad Hits Every Time.

I am in a salad ZONE right now. In all seasons, but especially in summer, I love a big Italian salad – salami, cheese, pepperoncini, all the spicy, briny, mouth-loving salady things.

But I do not love having to think about a dressing. I’m lazy. It’s not hard but it feels like a barrier? I don’t know.

So here’s how I’m doing Italian salads right now – and by doing, I mean, like, making every couple of days to sit outside and eat in the sun for some lunchy moments of bliss. It’s giving Olive Garden bottomless salad, but, like, more grown-up, more fun, and all-around incredible.

We’ve got shreds of romaine, chopped salami and cheese (two kinds, if you’re me), pepperoncini, paper-thin pieces of red onion, and a big spoonful of these garlic golden crispy bits that are essentially serving the purpose of a crouton in a more pleasant, less mouth-scratching format. Just a delicate, golden garlic bready crunch amidst all this flavor. Drool.

And the key component! The dressing gets slicked into every crevice of this salad – it’s just in the form of a couple of absolutely mindless, no-recipe splashes and drizzles. I use 3 things:

There’s already so much good stuff here with a ton of flavor, so I guess I just started to realize – why are we making a dressing for this? No need. Splish, splash, shake and done.

I’m using the DeLallo Castelvetrano Extra Virgin Olive Oil for this salad these days and it’s delightful – fruity, pleasantly bitter, with a peppery finish making it awesome for finishing which is basically all applications in this salad. Plus the squeeze bottle! Ooo baby! Love, love! It makes it THE PERFECT oil component in this recipe. I feel personally close to this bottle of olive oil right now. We’ve worked with DeLallo for years and they produce and import the best Italian products around!

To big yummy Italian salads in the sun! Let’s go!

Salami, cheese, red onion, and lettuce. (I’m using romaine here.)

The DeLallo castelvetrano squeeze bottle oil is my good, good friend in this recipe. Just squeeze that oil onto the panko with some garlic powder to start.

Then we microwave that for about a minute, stir it up, and go back for another 20-30 seconds until it’s nice and golden. It’ll be HOT – don’t taste it yet! But add a pinch of salt and admire your crispies.

This is absolutely effortless. I just add 3 things: a few shakes of Italian seasoning, a couple squeezes of olive oil…

and a splash of pepperoncini brine.

Toss and serve! Or, in my case, take the whole big bowl for yourself.