A delicious and filling roast vegetable salad with green olives and beetroot and finished with a tasty dressing. Perfect for lunch or a light dinner.

Roast Vegetable, Olive & Beetroot Salad with Dressing

Name: Roast Vegetable, Olive & Beetroot Salad with Dressing
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 1 large serving
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: a drizzle of olive oil (or rapeseed oil); 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks; 1 red onion, peeled, cut in half and then into wedges; 1 courgette (zucchini), sliced; 40g (approximately 1 ½ oz) mixed salad leaves; 3 pickled baby beets, halved (or whole cooked beets, halved; 6 pitted green olives; 3 sundried tomatoes, halved; 3 teaspoons olive oil; 1 teaspoon pesto; 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar; a small pinch of salt and pepper

A salad in winter? Hell yeah!

I admit I eat more soup in the winter and more salad in the summer,

I'm sure everyone is the same and I'm still eating lots of tasty homemade soup just now, but today I'm working from home, it's cold and dreich outside, but it's cosy inside and I was craving salad.

So I was kind to myself and made this roast vegetable, olive and beetroot salad.

It was yum!

As much as I like a salad in the winter I do think it should be either a warm salad or one that's a bit more substantial like this one.

What do you think?

A substantial winter salad filled with roast vegetables on a bed of salad leaves, with sundried tomatoes, pickled beetroot, olives and a pesto balsamic dressing. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

12 Frequently Roasted Vegetables

These are the vegetables I regularly roast to serve on a salad, in pasta or pasta salad, on pizza, in a bake (adding chopped tomatoes, stock, spices and beans), to toss through grains, to layer through a vegetable lasagne or to add to sandwiches and wraps. Yes they are super versatile.

Red, yellow and orange bell peppers - not green, I hate the green, they are so bitter, but if you like them, then do include them

Courgette - also known as zucchini

Aubergine - also known as eggplant

Red onions - for their sweetness

Mushrooms - make sure you use whole small mushrooms or large chunks or slices of mushrooms, smaller pieces will shrivel

Tomatoes - add these near to the end of cooking, they don't need as long

Sweetcorn - add this at the end of cooking, just to warm through

Sweet potatoes

Beetroot

Butternut squash

Potatoes - who doesn't love roast potatoes?

Parsnips - I used to roast these in honey, but now I use agave nectar, so the edges caramelise

Close up of Winter roasted vegetable salad with olives.

Salad for one - treat yourself!

Sometimes, I don't cook for everyone, especially at lunchtime when everyone wants something different.

So working at home today, I decided to treat myself to something special instead of settling for a sandwich.

For this 'generous for one' salad I roasted a few basic vegetables I always have in my salad drawer.

If I had planned this salad, I may have added some sweet potato too.

It would also be good topped with some crumbled vegan feta for that lovely creaminess with the salty finish.

Overhead shot of a roast veg salad served with dressing and orange juice.

What you need to make roast veg and beet salad

Here are the simple ingredients you need to make this hearty and flavour-packed roasted vegetable salad including the salad dressing ingredients.

Olive oil - or rapeseed oil
Red pepper - yellow or orange bell peppers would work too
Onion - red onion for sweetness
Courgette - also known as zucchini
Beets - either pickled baby beets or pre-cooked whole beets
Salad leaves
Green olives - pitted
Sundried tomatoes
Pesto
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and black pepper

You can vary this salad to use what you have.

Some sweetcorn would be nice too for a pop of colour and sweetness.

Cover of Much More Veg cookbook by hugh fearnley whittingstall

Much More Veg by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

I've mentioned frequently roasted vegetables, but you can roast pretty much any vegetable, well you can according to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, who says in his new book Much More Veg, ".... if you love a vegetable, you'll love it more roasted. Or at the very least love it differently .... ".

He recommends trying all vegetables roasted as well as some salad vegetables and not forgetting fruit.

Hugh even says that roast cucumbers are amazing.

Some vegetables are simply roasted with a little oil, salt and pepper and others he recommends roasting with spices.

It's an amazing book.

I've been wanting it for a while and finally treated myself this morning after various hints before Christmas failed miserably.

In the book Hugh shows us how to make vegetables the star of the show and all the recipes are vegan.

It is an amazing book and I can't wait to start cooking from it.

It's the most exciting cookbook purchase I've made for years.

We all need to be eating more vegetables than we do and this book is our best starting point.

Everyone should have this book.

And no I wasn't sent it, I bought it with my own hard-earned cash.

12 More Vegetables to Roast

Be adventurous! Try roasting a bigger variety of vegetables.
Here are a few more vegetables for you to try:

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Asparagus

Carrots

Celeriac

Little gem lettuce - cut into wedges lengthwise

Savoy cabbage - cut into wedges

Baby Leeks

Fennel

Sprouts

Kale

Corn on the cob - cut into 3 or 4 sections

close up of roast veg salad topped with fresh basil.

roast veg salad, roasted vegetable salad, salad, hearty salad, vegan salad, vegetarian salad

Lunch, Salad

Italian

Yield: 1 large serving

Author: Jacqueline Meldrum