Garden Vegetable and Deli Bread Bowl Salad

Back in the day, during my college years, I used to go to the chain restaurant Perkins all the time for their infamous bread bowl salads. They were huge, filled with all kinds of goodies, and then of course smothered in dressing. These salads were (and I am sure still are) awesome! But, after doing a little internet research I found out that some of these salads have over 1000 calories – yikes! That is half of the average person’s daily calories in just one salad. Wow, good thing at that time in my life I was not even thinking about calories. Nowadays, I am much more cautious with the foods that I eat. I would not say that I am crazy with calories but I am definitely intentional with the foods I eat.

To keep enjoying foods that I love I decided to create my own version of the bread bowl salad. Instead of using a large bread bowl I hollowed out a medium whole wheat roll. I found this to be the perfect individual portion size. The top hollowed out part of the bread can be prepared into homemade croutons or stored in the freezer to make homemade breadcrumbs later on. Because I wanted to keep the calories down I decided to just stick the leftover bread in the freezer.

I created the salad filling using Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit along with my favorite deli meats and provolone cheese. The Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit includes broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, dried cranberries, sunflower kernels, carrots, and crumbled bacon. It also comes with a tasty slaw dressing that perfectly ties together all the components of the kit and this recipe. The flavors of the Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit are nicely balanced between sweet, tart, and a little salty.

The ingredients are chopped into smaller pieces almost like a coleslaw consistency. I really liked this texture and found that it made the salad much easier to work with when filling the bread bowls. The smaller pieces of the salad kit also allows for the added ingredients to be distributed evenly for that perfect bite.

Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit

These bread bowl salads are just the thing to bring and put together for a party or dinner. I brought these to my parent’s house and had them assembled in 10 minutes. My mom, who is kind of a picky eater, said that she “super loves” the Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit.  She thought the dressing was amazing and loved that it had pieces of broccoli. My dad, who is a man of few words, said “yeah this is good, really good”.  Hubs and I agreed with both of them – this is a really good and satisfying salad! As you can see, Skinny Mom’s Kitchen is a family affair

Of course you can change up the deli meats and cheese to your liking.

Garden Vegetable and Deli Salad Bowl using Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit

Garden Vegetable and Deli Salad Bowl

Serving size: 1 prepared bread bowl salad

Servings: 4

Approximate nutritional information:

Calories: 342 * Carbs: 48 * Fat: 6 * Protein: 29 * Fiber: 15 * WW Points +: 8 * Old Points: 7

**please note the nutritional information is figure without the extra bread from hollowing out the roll.

Ingredients:

3 ounces smoked deli turkey

2 ounces smoked ham

2 slices salami

2 slices sandwich pepperoni

2 slices provolone cheese

1 bag Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit, prepared according to directions.

4 whole wheat rolls, hollowed out

Directions:

Step 1. Cut up the turkey, ham, salami, pepperoni, and cheese into small bite size pieces.

Step 2. In a large bowl mix together the prepared Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit with all the deli meats and cheese.

Step 3. Divide the salad among the 4 hollowed out salad bowls. Serve immediately.

Make Ahead Instructions

If you are bringing this recipe to a party or just want to have it ready to eat then you could hollow out the bread and cut up the deli ingredients ahead of time. When you are ready just prepare the Taylor Farms Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit and continue with step 2.

Disclosure: This post is part of the Month of Salad with Taylor Farms Campaign. I have been provided with the Garden Vegetable Chopped Salad Kit and compensation to create this recipe. All opinions are my own. To learn more about Taylor Farms check out their website and facebook page.