It's So Easy To Recreate Olive Garden's Signature Salad At Home - Here's Why

The all you can eat soup, salad, and breadstick lunch combo at Olive Garden is almost too good to be true. Plus, should you ever find yourself craving the chain's signature salad at home, you should know it's relatively easy to recreate -– especially when you can buy a bottle of the chain's signature Italian dressing in stores. With that said, one of the main reasons why salads taste better at restaurants than they do at home has to do with the dressing. This makes a store bought bottle your best short cut to creating an at-home Olive Garden salad that tastes just like the real thing.

Tossed with a healthy base of chopped romaine lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, cubed tomatoes, marinated black olives, pepperoncinis, croutons, and fresh Parmesan cheese — a bottle of Olive Garden's store bought dressing is all you need to finish off the chain's famous salad at home. The great thing is that you can grab a bottle almost anywhere, meaning you can scoop one up the next time you're at Target, Walmart, Publix, or even shopping on Amazon. But, while it can be as simple as sticking to the basic recipe, there are many ways to give this salad an upgrade. In fact, one of the best parts of making your Olive Garden signature salad at home is that you can make it however you want. That, naturally, makes your options for customizations endless.

While the entire point of getting Olive Garden's house salad dressing is for your salad to taste as close to the real thing as possible, there are plenty of ways you can build on this flavor — without venturing too far off course. The simplest thing you can do is add your choice of protein to the mix. A grilled chicken breast, baked salmon filet, or even marinated air fryer tofu can easily upgrade your Olive Garden salad at home, while still keeping true to its roots. Similarly, swapping your Parmesan for other ingredients –- or even finding signature Olive Garden's signature croutons — can similarly upgrade the taste.

If you didn't already know, Olive Garden also sells its signature croutons in stores. Using the same exact recipe, Olive Garden's store bought croutons deliver the same signature garlic and Romano crunch as they do when enjoyed inside the actual restaurant. With that said, you could also make your own fresh croutons at home. In fact, it's a great way to use up any stale bread you might have laying around, and you can season them the exact same way. Torn into irregular pieces or cut into squares, all your homemade croutons need are an olive oil toss combined with garlic powder and Romano cheese to get you even closer to the Olive Garden experience at home.