We've finally composted or given away the last of the Christmas cookies and frozen any remaining leftovers. I'm sure you can relate to the fact that the past few weeks have brought about many heavy meals and more sweets than we usually eat. To lighten up, I've dusted off the juicer and am vowing to make salads for lunch for the next few weeks. We have our go-to salad of farmers' market lettuces, goat cheese, and a lemony vinaigrette. But it's nice to mix things up for the New Year, and move beyond our tried-and true favorites.
Recently, David Tanis wrote a piece for The New York Times on great salads. In it, Tanis laments our ability to put together a good salad, noting: "To master the art of preparing salad, which is not really all that difficult, we should look to the French." He suggests that we could all use more time with vinaigrettes: first, master a simple one (olive oil, wine vinegar, salt and pepper) and then move on to create more intriguing salads from there.
→ Read the full article: Mastering a Vinaigrette at The New York Times
This is a great point. My mom's best friend Carol is a salad guru, and whenever we have dinner at her house, the conversation inevitably turns to Carol's salads: how does she do it? The simple answer: a good, appropriate dressing for the salad. Below I've included a few recipes from our archives on dressings to get you started, and a few of my own tips that I plan to follow this month. Do you have any tips or tricks up your sleeve to making truly exceptional salads?
3 Salad Tips
• Fresh Ingredients Matter: Yes, it's the dead of winter and the farmers markets can be a bit uninspired. Plus, it's simply cold outside and there are weekends when that's literally the last thing I'd like to do. But with a dish that's so completely dependent on one or two ingredients (lettuce or greens), the kind of lettuce you're buying matters a great deal. While the packaged lettuces are convenient, they're often frozen and transported to your local grocery store, so they'll never taste as fresh and delicious as a local bunch of lettuce. Take a little extra time with the washing and chopping — it'll pay off in flavor.
• Break out the Mandoline: I always hate recommending that readers buy a new piece of kitchen equipment, but if you don't yet have a mandoline, they work wonders for making an inspired, delicious salad. Mandolines allow you to very thinly slice vegetables like carrots and radishes, adding visual interest to your salads and allowing you to add many different vegetables without weighing down the greens. If you don't have a mandoline, you can certainly thinly slice these vegetables on your own — it just takes more time and patience, obviously.
• Experiment with Unexpected Ingredients: It's easy to reach for chopped mushrooms, sliced tomatoes or olives for your everyday salad. Maybe you like to scatter in a few sunflower seeds, soft cheeses, or croutons. But what about toasted hazelnuts? Gogi berries? Perserved lemon and capers? How about adding in cooked whole grains like couscous or quinoa for more of a complete meal? Starting to push the envelope on which ingredients belong in a salad can be quite liberating, will help you use up leftovers in the refrigerator, and will likely lead to new favorite salads.
3 Favorite Vinaigrette Recipes:
• Basic Vinaigrette
• The Best French Vinaigrette
• Bacon Vinaigrette
Related: 7 Ways to Make Any Salad Taste Better
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I bought a mandolin to slice up veggies for my salads...but sliced my finger instead. Those things are dangerous!
You can skip the mandolin by cutting the vegetables with a peeler, it works great and they look like ribbons. Perfect for salads, even if you do have a mandolin :))
Where do you live that you have farmers markets and fresh local lettuce in january! Sounds like great advice but most of them wrap up in late October in Boston.
Suggestions:
* Dried dates pair well with vinaigrettes, possibly better than any other dried fruit
* A small disk of goat cheese, rolled in bread crumbs and briefly toasted under the broiler can add some richness to a salad without going overboard
* The frozen food aisle is your salad friend in winter: peas and sweet corn add a fresh taste that's hard to get in this season
* Use a microplane grater on garlic into your vinaigrette, yogurt, etc. to get a big kick of flavor into your dressing. It'll be hotter and sharper than crushing
* Lemon juice is another winter freshness secret -- vinegar can't manage that.
joelfinkle, I like your goats cheese idea.
My current favourite salad is kale with a punchy mustard vinaigrette with carrot ribbons, avocado chunks and sliced cooked turkey sausage. Lettuce isn't in season here so I'm sticking to grains, pulses and winter greens like kale. The kitchn featured a chickpea salad with cucumber and sundried tomatoes a while back that I love.
I love salad! The core of my philosophy of eating, if I have one, is to fill up on vegetables, so I have a salad at every dinner. I alter the salad from season to season, according to what I have on hand. I like to add a handful of cheese and nuts, sometimes a bit of dried fruit. I generally dress salads very simply - with olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper.
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2011/10/17/how-i-dress-a-salad/
This time of year I like to add a warm element to the salad, to bring out the flavors and take the chill off the greens.
Here's one with warm roasted mushrooms and smoked gouda
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/02/11/salad-with-warm-roasted-mushrooms-and-smoked-gouda/
ANd here's one with warm kale and spinach, french lentils and wild rice
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/02/05/salad-of-warm-greens-french-lentils-and-wild-rice/
They make gloves that go with the mandolin made of kevlar and other similar hard-to-damage materials--it really makes it much safer and easier to use.
I was just about to say the same thing ... I quickly learned my lesson about using the guard thingy!
In Northern California, year-round markets are the norm so I have no problems in getting fresh lettuces and other greens as my salad base but it is difficult to come up with creative add-ins during the winter months. This time of year, I rely on more avocado, dried and fresh fruits, onions, sun-dried tomatoes and cheeses as my add-ins.
Wash your lettuce in advance, spin or pat dry, and let it dry completely before making salad. Crisp dry leaves are so much better than soggy, limp lettuce!
i always add at least one crunchy and one sour thing to my salad. they perk up every bite! try (crunchy) - toasted pepitas or nuts, Chinese noodles, toasted tortilla strips, leftover tortilla chips, etc. for the sour component i usually add capers, pickled turnips, pickled red onions, or pickled cauliflower.