While I am pretty sure there is not a gene for salad-making, my sister and I both inherited the ability to make great salads from my mom. Sometimes our salads are a meal—a hearty lunchtime or dinner salad with chicken, hard-boiled egg or beans, for example—though usually they’re just a great side dish for a healthy and delicious dinner. Whether passed down by nature or nurture, here’s our basic technique:
- The key is to start with the freshest looking lettuce—I lean toward romaine, Boston or Bibb lettuces or baby spinach. I wash it very well (few things are as icky as gritty salad), tear it into bite-sized pieces, and use a salad spinner to dry it completely.
- Our favorite trick is to include lots of goodies in the salad. My preferred combinations usually involve fresh or dried fruit, nuts, beans or chopped hard-boiled egg, and cheese. (I often follow this guideline: A fruit, a nut, and a cheese.) Sometimes I also include diced or small vegetables, such as bell peppers, tomatoes, corn kernels or peas. In the warmer months, a handful of fresh herbs are a wonderful addition.
- For fruits, I lean toward oranges, apples, pears, dried cranberries, strawberries, halved grapes and avocado—I’ve even been known to use blueberries. For nuts, I prefer walnuts (glazed or plain), pecans, pistachios or pine nuts. For cheese, I like Parmesan, feta, Gorgonzola, blue or goat cheese. It’s cheaper to crumble the cheese myself, but if I know that time will be tight I buy cheeses already crumbled at the supermarket. For softer additions, such as avocado and goat cheese, I add them after tossing the salad so they don’t get squished at the bottom of the bowl.
- Finally, we use just a little bit of high-quality dressing, store-bought or homemade (a simple combination of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Dijon or honey-Dijon mustard works well) and toss the salad thoroughly just before serving it. You don’t need much dressing, because the array of ingredients gives the salad lots of flavor.
Do you have a favorite salad dressing or combination that I should try? Please let me know by sharing it on the Scramblog or Facebook.
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I make this salad all the time and it always gets a compliment! I thought I’d share it. It’s pretty simple - I usually add pecans to it as well.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mixed-Garden-Greens-with-Apples-and-Cider-Vinaigrette-2759
-Melissa Natale
I have become a better, and more enthusiastic, salad maker since following Aviva’s advice to include a nut, a fruit, and a cheese. If I’m making a salad for company, I generally use toasted pine nuts or toasted slivered almonds. If it’s a salad just for our family, I use sunflower seeds. For a fruit I prefer dried cranberries, which I buy in bulk. In the winter, I buy pomegranate seeds from Trader Joes’s, which are delicious in a salad. For a cheese I usually use (pre-) grated Parmesan, but also like crumbled goat cheese. Lately I’ve been putting delicious dried onions in my salads (usually in lieu of a nut), which I find at Whole Foods. I also think an easy way to make a salad better is to always use homemade dressing. I really don’t like store bought salad dressing, and even the simplest homemade dressing is better. I love to experiment with different oils (grapeseed, walnut oil, hazlenut oil).