Pittsburgh Salad with Crispy French Fries

Pittsburgh is well-known for stuffing french fries inside a hefty sandwich, but one of the lesser-known culinary joys of the Steel City is french fries on a salad. That’s right — warm, creamy, crispy, deliciously salted french fries served on top of a heaping bowl of veggies (and there’s usually a protein too). Fries on a salad might sound unconventional, but they provide a welcomed amount of warmth and sustenance to a salad, elevating it from a light side dish to a dazzling entrée. 

The Pittsburgh salad is filling, refreshing, and wholly unique to the area. It’s widely available at bars and restaurants across western Pennsylvania, and to me it represents all that is great about the blue-collar city. Getting a forkful of french fries with dressing, onion, and pickled peppers is an incredible bite of food that reminds me of home, and I’m happy to be able to share that experience with all of you. 

Grilled chicken or steak, french fries, a generous topping of shredded mozzarella or cheddar, and then a dressing on top of a salad are all you need to make this filling and ingenious meal. 

I like to make a speckled, herby ranch dressing, which is the perfect way to make use of the ingredients in your spice cabinet or refrigerator, so feel free to experiment with what’s in your home kitchen. I often find myself using upwards of 10 different dried herbs and spices in my ranch dressing. 

While you may experiment with your own array of preferred salad vegetables, I find that in Pittsburgh, most bar and deli salads come with hard-boiled eggs, tangy pickled pepperoncini, and thinly sliced red onion. In my hometown of New Castle, there’s even a version of the Pittsburgh salad that includes kibbeh, fried balls made with bulgur wheat and ground meat, on top.

Store-bought frozen french fries do all the hard work for you — the spuds already come peeled, cut, soaked to remove their starch, and blanched. I have found that brands like Lamb Weston produce a restaurant-quality french fry that many of my chef friends swear by. This way there’s no need to mess with frying (unless you really want those fresh fries).