Rotelli’s Salads

I’m not a big “fast food” person. I like subs, Chipotle, Panera, etc., but I wouldn’t purposly choose a typical fast food restaurant. When we lived in Columbus, we had so many quick pick-up options to choose from – take away from Cap City Diner (YUM!), Chipotle, Panera, Potbelly’s, and a gazillion other places were less than a mile from our house. One of our favorite other take-out options was Rotelli’s. They have delicious salads served in large bread bowls (basically a pizza dough round with salad on top). While probably not the healthiest thing ever, they were so yummy! Since I seem to make pizza dough fairly often now, I decided one day when I had some left over from making BBQ Chicken Pizza that I would try my hand at making us our own Rotelli salads.

They came out extremely delicious, so much so that I’ve made them again since the original time and they’re on the menu again tomorrow! One of the best things about them is that I’ve had Corrie grill the pizza dough so we don’t have to turn on the oven in this hot Southern summer, and it’s worked out perfectly.

I’ve used several different dressings, but I used this one the other day and it was easy and tasty!

Corrie also loved their spinach salad, so that might be up next!

Rotelli’s Inspired Gorgonzola Salad

Serves 2

5 cups of romaine lettuce, roughly chopped
1/2 cup of walnuts, divided
1/2 cup of roasted red peppers, divided
1/2 cup Gorgonzola cheese, divided
Cucumbers, sliced
Tomatoes, if desired
1/2 batch of pizza dough
Dressing (recipe below)

Preheat grill to medium high and form individual size (8″ rounds) circles. Grill the pizza dough on both sides until cooked through. Make sure to oil the dough and grates a little bit so it doesn’t stick!

Top the first pizza round with 1/2 of each: lettuce, gorgonzola, cucumbers, tomatoes, walnuts, and red peppers. Repeat for the second pizza round. Drizzle with dressing and eat!

Dressing