Granny Jordan’s Vegetable Salad
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Marinated in a tangy yet sweet vinegar dressing, Granny Jordan’s Southern vegetable salad is overflowing with canned and fresh vegetables, like pimentos, celery, green beans, corn, green pepper, and onion.
Granny Jordan’s vegetable salad recipe is one of those unassuming dishes of goodness that families with loving matriarchs just take for granted will show up at all of their get-togethers. It doesn’t put on airs, is easy to throw together, doesn’t cost a whole ton of money, and everyone loves it. Come to think of it, I would use a lot of those phrases to describe Granny Jordan herself. She had a graceful kindness about her in how she entered and operated in your life. Never one to butt in or force her opinions, she was happy to just “be” and her presence was always a joy. She didn’t judge, just welcomed and loved.
This vegetable salad recipe is both crisp and flavorful. We use a bunch of canned and fresh vegetables, including peas, green beans, corn, onion, green pepper, and onion. Then we marinate the vegetable salad in a sweet and sour dressing made with oil, vinegar, and sugar, and seasoned with salt and pepper. All you have to do is make the dressing, stir it into the vegetables, and let it chill in the fridge. I love to refrigerate it overnight so the dressing soaks into every last vegetable!
I’ve included some serving suggestions below, but this Southern marinated vegetable salad tastes good with basically any main dish. Alright, who’s ready to make it?
Recipe Ingredients
- White vinegar
- Vegetable oil or olive oil
- Sugar
- Salt
- Black pepper
- English peas
- Diced celery
- Pimentos
- French-style green beans
- White or sweet corn kernels
- Diced green pepper
- Chopped onion
How to Make Vegetable Salad
Place vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan and bring just to a boil, stirring constantly until sugar is melted.
Sometimes I just heat this up in the microwave and stir it real good, works just as well.
Drain all of the canned veggies and dice up all the fresh veggies, then place them all in a medium bowl.
Pour the prepared and cooled dressing over the top, cover, and refrigerate for several hours or until chilled.
When ready, serve your corn salad with a slotted spoon.
Enjoy!
Storage
Store leftover marinated salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Recipe Notes
- You can use apple cider vinegar if you prefer or if that is what you have on hand. Another option is white wine vinegar.
- For more flavor, add your favorite chopped fresh herbs, like fresh parsley, dill, cilantro, basil, chives, rosemary, or oregano.
- You can also add spices, like 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and/or celery seed.
- Adapt this recipe to suit you and whatever veggies you have on hand:
- Substitute the white onion for a red onion.
- Use red bell pepper or yellow bell pepper instead of green bell pepper.
- Swap celery for shredded carrot or use both.
- Use thawed frozen corn instead of canned corn.
- Substitute one of the cans of corn for a can of sliced mushrooms, lima beans, kidney beans, or water chestnuts.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with this simple vegetable salad?
If you want to serve your salad as a side dish, it works great with so many main dishes, like grilled chicken tenders, fried catfish, pork chops, and fried chicken.
You may also like these other sensational salad recipes:
Aunt Cathie’s Southern Grape Salad
Ham Pasta Salad With Ranch Dressing
The Best German Potato Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup white vinegar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil or olive oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 15-ounce can green peas, drained
- 1 14.5-ounce can French-style green beans, drained
- 2 11-ounce cans sweet or shoepeg corn, drained
- 1 cup diced celery
- 1 cup diced bell pepper
- 1 cup diced onion
- 1 2-ounce jar pimentos, diced and drained
Instructions
- Combine the vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan and bring just to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool.3/4 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup vegetable oil or olive oil, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper
- Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl and pour vinegar mixture over all, stirring to coat.1 15-ounce can green peas, drained, 1 14.5-ounce can French-style green beans, drained, 2 11-ounce cans sweet or shoepeg corn, drained, 1 cup diced celery, 1 cup diced bell pepper, 1 cup diced onion, 1 2-ounce jar pimentos, diced and drained
- Cover and chill for eight hours or until thoroughly chilled.
- Serve with a slotted spoon.
Nutrition
“When you look back, you’ll find that most of the special memories were nothing more than moments. Not glamorous or expensive, not planned or thought out in detail. They happened in love, in joy, in appreciation, and in honest connection.
Make time for those special people in your life today, make time for those special moments to happen.”
~Doe Zantamata
Love this salad!! Thanks for posting 🙂
It’s been fun to see your children growin’ up via your blog and from the two pictures Mr. Brady SouthernPlate has the same haircut today as he did ten years ago. Smiles…
LOL, that he does! Thank you for being such a great supporter Shelzp!!
This recipe is so versatile. Sometimes I will add other veggies such as blackeyed peas, etc. Many times when in a hurry I will use Italian dressing instead of the oil, vinegar and sugar. Sometimes using sugar substitutes. This is so easy to make it your own
Thanks for these ideas!!! I have a hard time with sugar and oils since my cancer surgeries (lost a lot of my digestive tract).
It really is!! So happy to hear it is one of your favorites as well!!
Amen, Christy! I SO love your matter-of-fact, yet loving way of putting things! 🙂
Thank you Bobbie!!
I dug around for this recipe to take to a July 4 gathering. It’s a very adaptable recipe and there are a lot of variations of this out there! What I made worked, but I knew right away there was too much oil. I had slightly more oil than vinegar, but it should have been the other way around – like your recipe.
Also I threw in a teaspoon of celery seed because I didn’t have time to chop celery. The salad had the flavor but not the sweetness from the celery.
I did a red pepper instead of pimiento. I’ve never had corn in this salad before – tried it this time and it was wonderful!
There are a lot of variations and it is really easy to adapt to what you have. So glad you tried it and liked it with corn!!
I made this salad when I saw it in your cookbook. It was a hit with the family.
In this post, under the picture of the ingredients, you list “diced onion” as well as “chopped onion.” Is that an “oops?” 🙂
Love you my Southern Blog Friend,
Judy D.
P.S. ♫ ♪ Happy Birthday Brady ♪ ♫
He said Thank You Judy!!!
eek! I’ll go fix it now. Thanks!!!
Thank you Christy! This sounds divine. I love recipes that you can throw a can of this and a can of that in and right real quick you something that will feed a crowd for not much effort or money, especially the money part. this would be great to take to a dinner on the grounds after church
It is a perfect dish for that Marsha!!!
Can you serve the salad warm
It can but it still really needs to refrigerate for a bit to get the flavors developed.
Dear Christy! Made this salad tonight to go with a spring dinner. Oh my word! Simple ingredients that taste so good. Husband approved. It went great with some fried chicken. Going to make this again to take some upcoming potlucks. Love that I have something new and different to offer up to my family and friends. Love you girl! -Helen Craw
I am so glad to hear that y’all liked it Helen!! Thank you so much for trying it and I love you back!!