Chopped Salad. It’s like a salad, but it’s pasta too which is way cooler. The Portillo’s chopped salad is something I’ve missed oh so dearly, and here’s how you can make it at home…..but vegan.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about how ketchup doesn’t belong on chopped salad either.

The Vegan Portillo’s Chopped Salad. Throw me in the dog house.

THE VEGAN PORTILLO’S CHOPPED SALAD

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 25 minutes

It’s like everyone’s third favorite item on the menu at Portillo’s!

This will probably be the only recipe that I write that requires you to purchase Iceberg lettuce. Traditionally, the Portillo’s Chopped Salad is made up of romaine, iceberg, red cabbage, ditalini pasta, diced chicken, bacon, tomatoes, gorgonzola, green onion and Italian dressing. Fortunately most of those are vegan off the bat so only a few things have to be swapped.

To start, you can get your pasta going and cook your chicken & bacon substitutes.

What you’ll need:

ditalini pasta
seitan
vegan bacon
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
lemon pepper
olive oil

Bring some water to a boil and salt it generously. Add your ditalini pasta and let it cook for about 10-12 minutes. You want it to be al dente, which is fancy talk for not all the way cooked. When your pasta is finished, drain it and throw a little olive oil on it.

Next, toss some oil in a pan and add your seitan. Keep the flame at a medium heat so they cook out evenly. You can sear them at the end if you wish. While your seitan is cooking, add salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Toss them around a little bit and then add some lemon pepper.

You can dice them up later. Sear them a little bit if you want some crunch. Texture!

Next order of business is cooking your vegan bacon. I like the Sweet Earth kind. Lay them out on a cutting board and chop into little pieces. Use the same pan you cooked the seitan in. You can add extra spice to the bacon if you want but it’s up to you. Let them cook in the pan til they are very crispy. They will get lots of dressing on them later so you want them to maintain their texture. When they’re done cooking, put them on a paper towel to get rid of some of the excess.

Now so far you have: cooked pasta, seitan and vegan bacon. The hardest part is over.

You can eat these every day if you want, I don’t care!

Next, you’re going to chop up all of your vegetables and put everything together.

What you’ll need:

romaine lettuce
iceberg lettuce
red cabbage
green onion
beefsteak tomato
violfife feta
vegan Italian dressing (I used Daiya. Sigh.)
lemon
sugar

Chop up some iceberg and romaine lettuce.

Here is a visual in case you’re prone to fucking that up somehow.

Dice up some red cabbage and green onion. Dice up a tomato into small chunks. I didn’t take pictures for this part, I’m sorry.

Now for the dressing, Portillo’s uses a milky, white looking Italian dressing. It might be vegan, I don’t know. But I don’t expect you to wait in line at Portillo’s just to get dressing. Pour a whole bottle of Daiya Italian dressing into a bowl. It’s not going to be sweet enough, so add a little less than a cup of sugar and a bunch of lemon zest. Why couldn’t you get that right, Daiya?

Now in another large bowl, add your all of your vegetables and as much pasta as you want to add. The more the merrier! Add your seitan and bacon in there too. Then crumble up some of that violife feta directly into the salad because I haven’t found vegan gorgonzola yet.

After you take a nice photo of your chopped salad and tag me on instagram, throw a bunch of dressing on it because it won’t look nearly as pretty after you do!