Salad

Cucumbers are far more versatile than you might imagine. Their mild, slightly sweet flavor makes them the perfect palate for most any flavor–Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, you name it!Here are a few of our favorite ways to use up summer cucumbers while they’re still fresh and crunchy. What are yours?Make Pickles. It’s not nearly so hard to make pickles as you might imagine since the majority of the work comes if you want to can them for long-term storage.

Jazz up your salad bowl with one of these tasty greens.

This hack couldn't be easier and takes just seconds.

Grandma did it, and so should you.

Courtesy of Daphne Oz's grandmother.

Here are a few tips we're borrowing from the French for taking salad out of side-dish territory and making it the main event.

It made me an advocate for homemade dressings once again.

It might seem surprising, but it really makes sense!

Learn how to make even a simple pile of greens sing.

It really does make everything taste better.

A bitter green you'll actually love.

According to a now-viral TikTok video by @nutritionbabe, if you hold your romaine upright and smash the bottom against your countertop, you’ll end up with perfectly cut lettuce.

It's the difference between a boring pasta salad and an exceptional one.

I'll never make a salad without it again.

A complete guide to making better, bolder salads this season.

Because it's salad season.

Don't throw them out.

If you only have time to do one thing, make it this.

It's just three ingredients dumped into a mason jar and shaken, but it's pure genius.

Just a bit mellows out all of the flavors so that each can shine through.

Say so long to soggy cukes.

One mom finally found a solution to getting her kids to eat their salads — by making them fun.

Repeat after me: “No more boring lettuce salads.” This summer, let’s challenge ourselves to go beyond our usual plates of mixed greens. Pick up some greens at the farmers market that you’ve never tried before. Swap your usual vinaigrette for something with some real pizzazz. Maybe even give those greens a quick sauté on the stovetop — warm lettuce salad? Why not!

Of all the annoying traits a person can have, not coming to the table when they say they will is one of the worst. That happens constantly at my house. When I do the cooking I’ll let everyone know when the food is ready, and they’ll say they are coming. Then I’ll toss the salad and take it to the table, and no one will be there.

You’ve heard us say it again and again: always cook pasta in a large amount of well-salted boiling water until al dente. But when it comes to pasta salads that will be served cold or room temperature, we’ve actually started taking a slightly different approach.For pasta destined for a picnic salad, we like to do two things:1. Cook it in even more heavily salted water.2. Cook it just a little beyond al dente.

For many years I worked in overnight retail management. Working odd hours is rough to begin with, but having something fresh for lunch at 2 a.m. was tricky, so we turned to salads — they were easy to make, quick to throw together, and always left us with a fresh burst of energy. Here are some tips I learned along the way to help you efficiently prep a variety of salad lunches on Sunday.

If the only time you think of pulling that jar of balsamic out of the cupboard is when it’s time to make a salad, you’re missing out. This sweet and tangy vinegar is one of my favorite secret ingredients, and I’ve found all sorts of ways that its presence will perk up my everyday cooking. To Finish Soups and Sauces: Balsamic and ripe summer tomatoes have a well-known affinity for one another.

It’s easy to eat more salads and greens as the weather warms up. You might crave something cool and crisp, or the CSA you joined is kicking into high gear and loading you up with lettuces and greens. Do you know the best ways to wash, dry, and store your greens? A little how-to can help make prep easier, plus extend the life of your produce. Here are our best tips!

The other night I ate one of my favorite restaurant meals: a finely chopped arugula and radicchio salad with tiny, crispy-yet-melting bits of fried onions, and paper-thin shards of sharp cheese. It’s a fabulous salad, but it’s one I’ve never been able to recreate at home. Unlike many restaurant dishes, which I feel can be recaptured at home with a little detective work, salads can just taste so much better when you’re out.

We recently went on a salad kit-eating spree here at Kitchn and it was even more thrilling than it sounds — trust me! Every day for weeks I found myself wandering the refrigerated sections of every grocery store on my walk to work and purchasing every single salad kit at my disposal. All of this was in an effort to determine the best salad kits in America, which I’m confident that we did! (See: We Tried Nearly Every Salad Kit in America. Here Are the Top 5.

On their own, salad kits don’t go very far. Most claim to have three to four servings per bag, but let’s be real — you can easily devour the whole thing on your own in one sitting. To stretch them a little further (say, like, dinner for two!), all you need is a little inspiration and creativity, and you’ll see that a basic salad kit is your starting point for a one-bowl meal to feed two hungry people. Here are 10 ideas to get you started.

When it comes to easy, satisfying lunches, a salad kit is often your best friend. It does all the work for you by packaging up a healthy helping of greens with a bit of salad swag — dressing, crunchy bits, dried fruit. But you don’t have to take salad kits at face value. Here are a few ways to amp up these budget-friendly lunches from their $1.99 price tag into something that tastes like a $14 salad from the fancy salad bar.

Yesterday the CDC issued a stern warning to the country: Do not, under any circumstances, eat romaine lettuce. An E.Coli outbreak may have contaminated all types of romaine. If you bought any heads or hearts of romaine, go into your kitchen right now and throw it out. Same goes for any boxed salad mixes. In fact, you better stay in there and disinfect your refrigerator. Better to play it safe.

A really good fruit salad can be a truly special treat. Light and refreshing, it is so simple to pull together yet has the power to be the star of your brunch, potluck, and even dessert spread. While choosing the right fruits to add to the bowl will certainly help when you want to whip up a crowd-pleaser, the real key to amazing fruit salad doesn’t come from the produce aisle.

“Resting time” in recipes is the bane of my existence. I’m a big fan of instant gratification, and I’m constantly forgetting to leave time for things like letting the meat rest or waiting for the cake to be completely cool before attempting to frost it. My puddings are always full of little fingerprints because I’m constantly poking them to see if they’re set yet, even though the recipe says they’ll need another three hours.

Make it a little fancier without actually trying any harder.

For most of my life, I thought I hated salads, but it turns out I just really don’t like most salad dressings. For years I tried to eat salads, only to take a few bites before giving up and leaving an over-dressed mess of goopy leaves on my plate. With the right dressing, however, salads are one of my favorite things to eat now, and making a dressing that suits my own tastes is extremely easy to do at home.

Los Angeles isn’t all vibrant grain bowls, fancy toasts, and glowing glasses of cold-pressed juice — the city has a storied salad pedigree, too, dating back to the inception of the Cobb Salad at Hollywood’s Brown Derby more than three-quarters of a century ago. Nowadays, the stalwarts of LA’s health-conscious dining scene are staying true to the city’s legacy, leveraging the plethora of Southern California produce with the city’s boundless culinary diversity.

“Salad night” was a tough battle to win in my house. It took some convincing that salad for dinner wouldn’t be boring, and most importantly that it would be filling enough that we wouldn’t have to reach for frozen pizza 30 minutes after dinner. Here are my favorite tricks for assembling dinner salads that are guaranteed to be bolder, more flavorful, and 100% satisfying for dinner.

Every restaurant kitchen has an unsung hero — someone who keeps the wheels turning, the food coming (and, as a result, the lights on), but who never makes it into the magazines. Sometimes it’s the dishwasher, sometimes it’s the fry cook. At Oleana Restaurant, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I worked for several years as sommelier, it was Pacho. Pacho was a prep cook and a legend.

For anyone who believes no lunch salad is complete without chicken, this is the salad kit you need to put together right now. It’s inspired by a classic BLT sandwich and paired with seared, sliced chicken and a tangy yogurt ranch dressing on the side. Pull together the components for this salad when you’re meal prepping for the week and pack it up in a divided lunch box to keep each ingredient fresh.

If your regular salad order skews toward a bowl of greens tossed with shrimp and a medley of chili-spiced ingredients for punchy Southwestern flare, this is the DIY salad kit to keep in your lunch rotation. And we’ve got a couple smart grocery store shortcuts help it come together fast. A good source of protein is an essential element in any salad that serves as a meal. It’s what helps to fill you up and keep you full.

Pasta salad, when assembled correctly, is sublime. A great pasta salad is the star of any backyard barbecue or picnic potluck. All too often, though, it is subject to mediocrity, thanks to too much mayo, squishy pasta, and not enough salt. Don’t make these common mistakes! Let this be the year you master the perfect pasta salad. The wrong pasta type or size can make pasta salad soggy, slimy, or just plain hard to eat.

Why don’t we make salads the center of our party table? It seems like an obvious idea once you get to thinking about it — especially in spring when the season is gifting us with tender greens, edible flowers, and ripe berries. But salads are too often sidekicks rather than scene-stealers when it comes to party food. Are we worried they will seem fussy? Or perhaps too insubstantial?

Let’s face it — a simple salad just isn’t enough for dinner. (People tend to complain.) So when you’re looking to turn those last bits of spinach, half a cucumber, and a few chopped radishes into a dinner-ready meal, here’s a trick: Reach for that bag of frozen tortellini. This brilliant shortcut transforms the last bits of the crisper drawer into a dinner you can make for one or scale up to feed four or more. Here’s how!

Keep a bag of frozen tortellini tucked away in your freezer and you can rest easy knowing that a quick meal is always at the ready. This series on fast tortellini dinners will show you how to transform frozen tortellini into dinner using pantry staples and a few surprising techniques. Pasta sauce is just the beginning! Family get-together coming up this weekend and you need to bring something everyone will eat? Pasta salad. Need a fast, but fresh dinner between work and soccer practice?

Even if you haven’t made a resolution to eat more vegetables this year, let’s all make a resolution to make our salads more satisfying. There’s too much potential to be wasted on salads that leave us hungry after an hour and don’t actually taste all that memorable. Here are the 10 ways I ensure my salads are a satisfying meal every time.

We’re of the persuasion that more veggies — at all times of the day — is a good thing, which means a veggie-based salad can make for a solid morning meal, especially if your palate is tired of yogurt and oatmeal. However, a bowl full of mesclun won’t keep you satisfied until noon — there are a few keys to getting the breakfast salad right. Here are five to keep in mind. Protein helps make the salad satisfying and can take many forms.

Salads for lunch can be a beautiful thing, but they do need a little forethought in order to avoid soggy lettuce or uninspired toppings. Here are our top 10 tips for packing a tasty, inspired, mishap-free lunch salad. This post successfully solves the dilemma of how to keep salad greens fresh all week long. The basic premise here is to prep a big batch of fresh, crunchy salad base on Sunday that you use throughout the entire week.

A light, refreshing fruit salad is a great way to wrap up a summer cookout. But it’s all too easy to get carried away when you’re cutting up your fruit and end up with a giant bowl that’s way more than you need. The leftover fruit salad may be great over your yogurt the next morning, but soon after it starts to look sad and slightly mushy. Here are five ways to use up fruit salad that’s just past its prime.

Slice up a peak-season tomato, eat it plain, and it will be a glorious thing. But tomatoes play extra well with others. Toss two more ingredients in the ring and you’ve got the kind of salad that only summer can bring. Take, for example, the caprese: Pair fresh mozzarella and basil with those tomatoes and everyone is happy. Here are 11 ways to mix up your tomato salad routine.

Maybe you don’t even need to be talked into adding fruit to your tomato salad because you’re well aware of tomato’s classification as a fruit. And perhaps you’re also aware of how its inherent acidity is the most welcome guest in a too-sweet fruit salad. If, however, the combination of tomato and fruit baffles you or leaves you skeptical, permit me to do some convincing.

Caesar salad is timeless — an enduring classic that’s inspired many variations. From the fresh romaine and the crunchy croutons, to the shaved Parmesan and rich, salty dressing, this is a combination of flavors that can travel beyond the salad bowl with great success.

I recently had a pretty bad Caesar salad experience at a fast-causal restaurant: The salad arrived in a plastic clamshell (the rest of our dinner did not) with romaine pieces so large I could not even get my mouth around them, exactly four croutons, and the tiniest packet of Caesar dressing. In hindsight, I knew better than to order that particular salad — telltale signs of salad sadness were everywhere.

Caesar salad is the emperor of summer salads. Cool romaine gets tossed with a creamy, tangy, Parmesan-laced dressing and epitomizes what we both love and hate about simple salads (side-eye at you, wedge salad). While this salad seems simple, there are at least a dozen ways to make a mediocre Caesar salad. Avoid the following when assembling Caesars for your next summer soirée.

Don’t let Caesar salad be the meal you reserve for restaurants and dinner at home. It’s fast to prepare and only has a few ingredients, which means it has the potential to become a completely blissful lunch. But it all comes down to how you pack it. Before you even get to the ingredients, consider the container they’re packed in. When it comes to salad, we believe the very best option is a large, wide container. (Sorry, Mason jars.

Traditionally creamy Caesar dressing gets its rich and luxurious texture from the addition of raw egg yolk. When prepared correctly, it’s completely safe to eat, but I understand your concerns if that’s not quite for you. Don’t rule out homemade creamy Caesar dressing, though! Try one of these five methods for making it without raw egg. I recently learned this tip when making thousand island dressing.

Caesar salad might be the Kim Kardashian of salads. This is a theory I have, and it sprung from a few conversations about Kim Kardashians’s empire of influence following a recent GQ article hell-bent on introducing the world to Kim K, CEO. I was discussing this article with Ariel and during our conversations words like ubiquitous, harmless, and average kept coming up.

Caesar dressing, whether store-bought or homemade, is a glorious thing. Its garlic, cheese, and anchovy-packed flavor with its rich and creamy texture is the key to one of the best classic salads around. But if it’s so good, why limit it to only salad? In fact, why not use it to make 10 other dishes infinitely better? We were asking ourselves the very same question, so we answered it. Toss chicken in Caesar dressing and let it refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Not long ago, when kale was on its way to becoming the hottest vegetable around, someone had the bright idea to swap the hearty green in for romaine in a classic Caesar salad. At the time I thought this was brilliant — coat kale in creamy, cheesy Caesar dressing, pile it with croutons, and everyone will eat it. But there are only so many kale Caesar salads one can eat.