As you know, messy, hard-to-eat salads are the bane of my existence. Which is why I perked up like a curious terrier when I read this advice to "blow your salad to smithereens" from Cheryl Sternman Rule on her blog 5 Second Rule. Cheryl, I do believe you're speaking my language.
As the author of the upcoming cookbook Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables, Cheryl doesn't mean to literally do away with salads dynamite-style, of course. She's talking about our old friend The Chopped Salad.
We tend to forget about chopped salads when the recipe doesn't specifically call for it. But as Cheryl says, chopping our usual salad components into tiny little pieces is a great way to shake ourselves out of a salad rut. It doesn't require that much more thought than our usual mix of leafy greens, but it changes things up just enough to make the salad interesting again.
And I'll also add, chopping makes salads easier for those of us who find eating them a challenge. Rather than spearing our way through billowy leaves or chasing garbanzo beans across a plate, chopped salads allow us to scoop those same leaves fearlessly and with a certain degree of elegance.
I may just adopt this practice of chopping salads full time, not just when I'm in a rut. What about you?
• Read It! Blow Your Salad to Smithereens on 5 Second Rule
• Pre-Order Her Book: Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables by Cheryl Sternman Rule with photography by Paulette Phlipot
Related: Classic Dinner Salad: Wedge Salad with Blue Cheese
(Image: Cheryl Sternman Rule of 5 Second Rule)
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I always do this to my salads, especially fruit salads. The whole point is to get a little bit of everything in one bit - why not make it easy! It drives some people crazy because they like to pick and choose, but most people appreciate my tiny chopped fruit salad.
I love doing this to my salads as they seem that much more filling and enjoyable that way. Especially in the depths of winter when tomatoes are months away and my salads are just consisting of carrots, celery and other ho-hum add-ins (no offense to carrots or celery mind you...).
All I can think about is Gordon Ramsay in "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" (the UK one) excoriating restaurant owners for their stuck in the 80s chopped salads.
I LOVE a good chopped salad- it's the best way to take advantage of all the best a salad has to offer- the different textures, the colors...
I too can't stand huge-leaved salads--so ridiculously difficult to eat, with half the dressing ending up all over your face! I love to blow my salads to smithereens so I can eat them with a spoon. Yes, you heard that right: I prefer to eat my salads with a spoon! I also eat popcorn with a spoon because I can't stand getting oil and salt on my fingers.
I love making a Kritharaki salad. They are tiny noodles shaped like rice, and when making such a salad, I always chop mushrooms, onions, tomatos, peppers and cucumber pretty fine. It tastes wonderful.
Really? I'm sorry, but how is this a seriosuly innovative suggestion? Salad is not hard to eat if you cut it to a comfortable size. I can't imagine no one has figured this out when they were served a ceasar salad that consisted of two whole (or cut in half) leaves of romaine with some stuff on top. Didn't you say, "Wow, that's impractical. I would never do that."? Who serves giant chunky salads in their own home?
When I allow myself to buy my lunch on a work day, my favorite thing to do is go to Whole Foods, fill a giant container at their salad bar, go home and chop it all to bits. I love getting everything in one bite but I think the rhythmic chopping, scraping and dumping into a bowl is so soothing in the middle of a hectic workday.
this gave me the idea to cut up my spinach before i made a salad out of it, which i wouldn't have thought of doing before, but it was a lot better!
Makes me want to try taking my next salad and dumping it in the food processor for a couple bursts. Too much?
thekitchn posted a recipe about a year ago for a chopped salad with quinoa. we have been eating it with a spoon and it TOTALLY makes a difference! it's almost like eating a bowl of fried rice or something... except healthier. until anyone chops their salad to bits so small to eat with a spoon, you just won't understand the awesomeness it entails!! so good!! i have my mother hooked on it too now so i know we aren't the only crazy ones :P
It does make it SO much easier to eat. The only bad part is that chopping instead of tearing lettuce leaves for some reason makes them brown sooner. But if your salad is mainly vegetables, it'll keep in the fridge, which means it will be even MORE convenient, which means you will probably eat more veggies.
I love Gordon Ramsay, but he's wrong on this one. If I go to a restaurant and I have to cut the lettuce with a knife (unless it's a lettuce wedge or grilled romaine heart, in which case yay), I'm not going to be real happy. Ditto trying to shove 2 inch plus across pieces of lettuce into my mouth. Chopped may not look as pretty, but it's a heckuva lot prettier to eat. And you won't be chasing stray pieces around your plate trying to stab them because you can just scoop them up.
I do love Cheryl and 5 Second Rule. She is hilarious as well as being an innovative writer and cook.