Low Carb Italian Sub Salad

This easy low carb Italian sub salad is so good you won’t miss the bun! It’s a deconstructed Italian sub sandwich in salad form and only takes a few minutes to make. The tasty blend of grilled meats and cheese along with sub toppings makes for a tasty and filling keto salad!  Each serving has only 3.6 grams of net carbs and 16.7 grams of protein!

You might also like this keto cheesesteak salad with parmesan dressing.

Long, long ago in a land far away there was a little Mediterranean restaurant called Bubba Darius. My father and I used to go there on a Friday night and had the best meals. They had delicious baba ganoush as well as pizzas.

They also served an antipasto salad that was much like the flavorful salad I’ve made today. Unfortunately they closed shop some years ago so I had to learn to make it myself.

The thing that I really like about this easy low carb Italian sub salad is that it’s just like eating a sub sandwich but without the bread. In other words it’s one tasty, filling and delicious salad and it’s low carb so perfect for anyone on a keto diet.

I found all the salad ingredients at Aldi but you can play around with the deli meats, cheeses and toppings to make it the way you like. If you are fan of hoagies and sub sandwiches I’m sure you are going to love this deconstructed Italian sub and it only had 3.6 grams of carbs an 16.7 grams of protein!

Recipe ingredients I used and suggestions.

The simple ingredients I used for this recipe was a lettuce, Italian meats and cheeses, ham, olives, tomatoes, onion and pepper rings.

Romaine Lettuce
I love hearts of romaine lettuce because it’s much like iceberg lettuce but with more taste and nutrition. You can use whatever kind of lettuce you want for the base but I would use crunchy lettuce so it stands up to all the toppings. So if you want to use baby greens, spinach or mesclun mix they would be fine but crunchy lettuce is better.

Italian Meats
I found this great tray of Italian deli meats at Aldi. It’s a special and I don’t know if they have it all the time but they often have a tray of salami, pepperoni, capicola ham, etc. I would use those or if you can find such a thing just use salami and pepperoni slices.

I would also use ham slices. If you find capicola that would be great but I couldn’t at Aldi this week so I bought smoked ham.

Cheese
I prefer provolone cheese because it goes great with the Italian meats. You can see in this tray they had smoked provolone which is cool but regular works fine. Other cheeses are mozzarella cheese or possibly cheddar cheese but get provolone if you can.

Toppings
The other salad ingredients I used were sliced black olives, pickled banana pepper rings, diced tomatoes and red onion slices. I like the colors of this selection and it’s what is often on an Italian sub sandwich.

You can use all of these or some combination of them depending on your personal preferences. If you want you can substitute pepperoncini peppers or even sliced jalapenos for the banana peppers. Or use grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green olives, etc. Use whatever your favorite sandwich ingredients are.

My homemade dressing was just olive oil and and red wine vinegar with salt and black pepper. You can use whatever dressing you love on your subs. Typically it’s Italian dressing or oil and vinegar. If you want to add some hot pepper flakes to add a bit of spice, go for it!

Other delicious low carb salads to try.

I eat salads all the time. I just love them. As a matter of fact, recently a waitress at a local restaurant said to me that she wasn’t giving me a menu because she knew I was going to order a big chicken salad. And I did. 😛 

Here are all my 57 salad recipes if you are interested. A few of my favorite recipes are:

• bacon blue cheeseburger or big mac salad
• antipasto keto coleslaw
• taco cobb or Pittsburgh steak salad

How to make a low carb Italian sub salad.

Note I made 4 smaller salads but you can just make one big one if you wish.

Step 1: Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Step 2: Make 4 areas for the meat and cheese for the 4 salads. First layer 2 slices of ham on the bottom and then divide the Italian sliced meats on top.

Step 3: Next add the provolone cheese slices and the thinly sliced red onion. Place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes until the cheese melts and gets golden brown and bubbly a bit. Take it out of the oven and cool for a few minutes.

Step 4: Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut the meats and cheeses into bite size pieces for your salads. This makes it easier to eat.

Step 5: Assemble your salad buy tossing the lettuce mixture with whatever dressing you want. I used a simple olive oil, red wine vinegar, salad and black pepper. Top the lettuce with the bite size pieces of broiled meat and cheese.

Then add whatever toppings you want. I used tomatoes, black olives and banana pepper rings. Below you can see what mine looked like.

Alternatively you can just make the salad without tossing the dressing and then just sprinkle it over like you would with a regular salad. That way if you have leftovers you won’t have a soggy salad. 

Then you can use whatever dressing you want – Italian dressing or a creamy dressing like ranch, etc. Or use none at all.

Store leftovers in an airtight container or cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. Please scroll down for the printable recipe card.

Note you can use other vegetables like bell pepper, radishes, white onion, green onion, artichoke hearts, etc. If you are on low carb diet you will just want to make sure to take into account the carbs of these vegetables.

And if you don’t care about carbs you can try some garlic croutons to mimic the bread from the sandwich and be more of a panzanella salad. Or make homemade croutons from Italian bread if you want. I made keto garlic croutons from keto bread if you are interested.

That is my simple low carb Italian sub salad. It has all the flavor of a sub sandwich without the Italian roll. My husband and I eat this colorful salad for either a low carb lunch or light dinner. It’s really tasty to us and I hope you enjoy it too!

The nutrition for 1 serving without dressing is: 211 cals / 13.7g fat / 5.9g carbs / 2.3g fiber / 16.7g protein = 3.6g net carbs