La Scala Chopped Salad Recipe, Famous for Being Famous

Why buy the famous-for-being-famous La Scala Chopped Salad for $21.95 when you can DIY for so much less? The recipe for both the original salad and dressing is shockingly minimal and so easy, and I've included some pro tips for how to make it healthier and more nutrient-packed. Shall we?

Explore More

• Is this the Internet Famous La Scala Chopped Salad?
• What Ingredients You Need for La Scala Chopped Salad
• Instructions for How to Make La Scala Chopped Salad
• Pro Tips and Techniques for La Scala Chopped Salad
• Is the La Scala Chopped Salad Healthy?
• Variations and Modifications
• FAQ
• La Scala Chopped Salad Recipe
• Third Time's Not a Charm

Is this the Internet Famous La Scala Chopped Salad?

Yes! This La Scala Chopped Salad recipe is almost a near exact duplicate of the version that went kiiinda sooorta viral a few years ago when Kim Kardashian said it was her favorite salad.

I have eaten the La Scala Chopped Salad in the restaurant more than a few times, did a little additional taste-testing, and just read a recipe printed by the Los Angeles Times in 1989. Only two things that make this version better different: 1) I add garlic to the dressing, and 2) the price tag. The salad in the restaurant is $22 which sounds sort of outrageous since it's a very simple salad with romaine and iceberg lettuces. Start adding basic things like tomatoes and cucumbers and your salad is creeping well toward $30!

Now I'm not saying that that's way too expensive for a salad, but I'm not not saying that either. What I AM saying is that you can make and eat this salad in the comfort of your own home in your PJs for oh, I don't know, way way way less.

What Ingredients You Need for La Scala Chopped Salad

Salad ingredients:

• Romaine lettuce, 1 head
• Iceberg lettuce, 1 small head
• Italian salami, ¼ pound
• Mozzarella cheese, ¼ pound shredded
• Garbanzo beans, 1 15-ounce can, drained of the "bean juice"

Dressing ingredients:

• Olive oil, ¼ cup
• Red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons
• Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon
• Garlic, 1 small clove grated, optional
• Pecorino-romano cheese, ¼ cup grated (or Parmesan cheese)
• Sea salt and pepper, ½ teaspoon each

Instructions for How to Make La Scala Chopped Salad

The hardest step in making this salad is washing the lettuce. That's it. Otherwise, like most salads, there isn't much to the actual recipe than placing all the ingredients in a large bowl, drizzling with the dressing, and tossing until everything is well coated.

HOWEVER. As easy as any salad recipe is, there are a few tips and tricks along the way that will make this, or any, salad, the best salad of your life.

To present the salad as a "dome" the way La Scala does in the restaurant, spread the dressed chickpeas in the bottom of a round bowl. Place the remaining dressed salad greens on top. Cover the bowl with a plate, then turn over to invert the salad onto the plate so the chickpeas are now on top. You can place a single kalamata olive in the center of the dome.

Pro Tips and Techniques for La Scala Chopped Salad

1. Chop the lettuce as small as possible. One of the reasons you don't like eating salad is that it's hard to eat. We're going to fix that in two ways, the first of which is chopping the lettuce into the smallest pieces so you don't have to unhinge your jaw like a python to get a fistful of oversized airplane tarps into your mouth. Do I exaggerate to make a point? Yes, of course. Is it kind of true though? Also of course. Chop the lettuce small enough that you can eat it with a spoon. I'm serious.
2. Lightly crush and dress the garbanzo beans first. The second way we're making the La Scala Chopped salad easy to eat is by lightly crushing the garbanzo beans and then tossing them with a few tablespoons of the dressing first. Lightly crushing the garbanzo beans gives them edges so they can grab onto other ingredients in the salad and not all slip to the bottom of the bowl. And the dressing can get into the cracks giving them more flavor.
3. Make double the amount of dressing. Double the dressing, which is essentially an Italian Parmesan vinaigrette that is so delicious. Use the amount you need for the Chopped Salad, and use the remainder for another salad.

Tools and Equipment

You don't technically need any special equipment to make this La Scala Chopped Salad. You can simply use a large knife and cutting board to chop all the lettuces. However, I like sharing the couple of gadgets and tools that make the process even easier than it already is when making this salad.

• Salad spinner. If you make salads with any kind of regularity in your house, you absolutely need a salad spinner because wet, soggy greens are the worst enemy of good salads. And in the case of already watery greens like iceberg, the drier the greens, the better.
• Chef's knife. This is my daily workhorse knife that I've had FOR YEARS (with regular professional sharpening) and what you absolutely need to make easy work of tiny bits.
• Cutting board. Large and sturdy so you have enough surface area for all the fluffy greens, and doesn't move around on the countertop
• Fruit and vegetable wash. Look, dirt isn't bad for you. But nobody wants to bite into it at dinner. A vegetable wash just helps you get some of the natural (and unnatural) waxes off that might be clinging to dirt.

For the dressing, these tools are also helpful

• 2-ounce (4 tablespoons) liquid measuring cup
• Mini stainless steel whisk
• Wide-mouth mason jars and air-tight screw-on lids

Is the La Scala Chopped Salad Healthy?

Depending on your health needs and dietary considerations, La Scala's Chopped Salad is healthy! To be honest, I can't really think of a case in which the La Scala Chopped Salad would not be healthy, unless maybe acid from red wine vinegar in the dressing causes heartburn or the roughage and fiber in both the lettuces and garbanzo beans cause other gastric issue for you.

La Scala Chopped Salad Health and Diet Considerations

This recipe for La Scala Chopped Salad is:

• vegetarian adaptable if you leave the salami out
• gluten-free
• refined sugar-free

Variations and Modifications

• Add chopped tomatoes, which is an add-on at the restaurant (for $3?!)
• Add 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast to make it a heartier main dish salad
• Add a can of drained tuna to make the salad a protein and omega-3 powerhouse

FAQ

Best Restaurant Salads

• Antipasto Chopped Salad inspired by chef Nancy Silverton's at Pizzeria Mozza
• Hillstone Emerald Kale Salad
• Houston's Kale Salad
• Erewhon Kale and White Bean Salad
• LA-style Chinese Chicken Salad inspired by California Chicken Café, Feast from the East, and Health Nut

Food for Afterthoughts

There’s this little flow chart that I apply to restaurants and dining out.

The first time, it is a taste test. If it’s bad, you can unabashedly bad mouth it into the ground.

To keep it real though, you still have to go back to give it a second chance. If it’s bad again, you are confirmed, and you never have to go back. That is, of course, unless you have friends or family whose alien tastebuds 1) actually like the food at Chosun Galbee and will disown you if you don’t show up for dinner, and 2) confirm your suspicions that you must have been adopted. However, if it is good the second time, then they (the restaurant, not your family) have redeemed themselves and you must cringe. You have to shamefully retract every bad thing you ever said about them the first time.

The third time should be validation that it’s good. It is proof positive, and after that, it becomes a stand-by.

Right? That’s The Sequence.

Hustled and Flow

But, well, I just don’t know what happens after it’s bad the first time, but it’s good when you give them a second chance, but bad when you go back. Bad -> Good -> Bad. Was it just luck on the second time? Is it an “every-other” pattern? Will it actually be a gamble every time assuming you go again? Am I thinking too much?

Yes. I am thinking too much.

The first time I went to La Scala, it was horrible, with a capital F for fuckinorrible. Note that I said “it” was horrible and not specifically the “food” was horrible. Let’s just say that "it" had something to do with “slimy,” which may or may not be referring to the food, and may or may not be referring to my date. At this point, it doesn’t matter which is what, though you can guess which one it “may” be (it was the date, for the slow people on public wi-fi), because I only associated La Scala with sleazy slimy slippery Guido-rrific greasy tools, and I am not talking about WD-40 and miter saws.

Second Chance

Like I’ve said before though, I like to give everything a second chance. That’s every “thing,” not every “one.” The second time didn’t come right away because Guido really had a very bad aftertaste that lingered longer than raw red onion in bleu cheese dressing. But eventually, I relented, and La Scala redeemed itself that second time with its Chopped Salad, for which it is famous. I had never had chopped salad before and I thought it was utter brilliance-ness on a salad plate – lettuce, cheese, salami and everything else chopped into a million little pieces to make it ridiculously easy to shovel into your mouth while gossiping about guidos (general term) with your sister. For a long while, I gushed about La Scala’s Chopped Salad to every person with whom I came into contact. I never gushed about a single guido.

Third Time's Not a Charm

The third time I went back to La Scala, it was bad. In fact, it was worse than the first time, and this time, there was no guido involved at all to act as a potential scapegoat. Do I disregard this last miserable visit, disqualify the first visit for Guido, and assume La Scala is good? Do I disregard that second good visit as an aberration and just assume that La Scala, true to the first and most recent times, is bad?

All I can say is that the ravioli was ugly.

Okay, that’s not “all I can say,” because when have I ever stopped at ugly?

That’s right. Never. I never stop at ugly! So, here are a few more things about La Scala that go beyond ugly.

Pasta is not very photogenic. We all know that the camera adds 10 pounds and that lighting can make or break you, so even if you’re not photogenic, you can always pimp with Photoshop. However, Photoshop cannot change who you are on the inside, and if you’re actually thick, chewy, dough-y, and covered in a deceptive sauce that perpetrates high flavor with color, that will eventually make itself known. Like right now. La Scala’s ravioli was thick, chewy, dough-y, and covered in a deceptive sauce that perpetrates high flavor with color. It wasn’t inedible. But it wasn’t pretty.

La Scala’s chopped salad is nowhere near as good as it used to be. Either that or my taste back when I first ate it every week for about six months was numb and naïve. There was too much dressing, and regardless of your affections or disdain for dressing, being overdressed to the point of sporting parkas on a nude beach in the Tropics is not good. The salad was soggy.

Eh. I think I may throw out the equation and just make the salad at home. No soggy salad, and definitely no Guido.