Shake It Up: Chop Your Next Salad to Bits

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)