Diary Free Soy Free Broccoli Salad

Finding foods without dairy or soy has led me to eat a lot of salads in the past couple of weeks. Now don’t get me wrong salad is delicious, but when you take out the dressing and call it a frequent main dish things can get a little boring.  I decided to mix things up a bit and forgo the traditional lettuce salad and try something a little more interesting.  It was great - filling, flavorful, sweet, and crunchy and I ate it as a meal for 3 days…

Also I’m not a huge fan of vinaigrette type dressings.  I’m a ranch girl through and through so having so many salads has been even more uninviting.  I found this poppy seed dressing at my local grocery store and I’m happy to report that it’s dairy and soy free and doesn’t have the same strong flavor as most of the vinegar based dressings.  It’s definitely not ranch, but it works as a decent replacement.  It’s a sweet flavored dressing, but I thought it worked really well on this salad.

Serving size: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ head of broccoli
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 red or orange bell pepper 
• ½ red onion
• 5 strips of dairy/soy free bacon (I used Butterball turkey bacon)
• Optional: Brianna’s Home Style Poppy Seed Dressing

Instructions: 

1. Cook the bacon till crispy using package directions. I usually cook turkey bacon in the microwave, by layering paper towels on a plate and cooking for a minute at a time until they reach desired crispiness.
2. Once bacon is cooked break or cut it into small ½ inch sized pieces. Put aside.
3. Chop the broccoli and cauliflower into bite sized chunks. 
4. Dice the tomatoes, bell pepper and onion.
5. Mix the broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, pepper and onion in a large bowl. 
6. Add bacon to the top of the salad just before serving. Drizzle with dressing if desired.