A well-prepared salad is often my favorite part of any meal. Done right, it packs tons of flavor for very few calories. Salads are rich in nutrients, and studies show that eating a salad with a meal helps fill you up sooner, so you don’t overindulge on less healthful foods. There’s even research to show that using full-fat dressing on a salad unlocks more nutrients in the salad than a no-fat dressing.
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While I’m not much of a cook, I have honed my salad-making skills over the years to the point that even my daughter and her friends love them. When it comes to kids and salads, I think tearing or cutting the greens into smaller pieces makes a difference. That way every forkful usually contains a better mix of flavors, rather than just a big piece of lettuce.
I’ve also learned that adding fruit to a green salad makes it more tempting to kids. I rarely use tomatoes, carrots or any of the standard garden salad ingredients. In addition to organic greens, we add dried cranberries, pears or apples and then add something crunchy like sunflower or pumpkin seeds, walnuts and sometimes croutons. We usually add a little crumbled cheese, and depending on what else is in the fridge, we might toss in grilled chicken, broccoli or corn.
This week, I learned a great salad-making tip from New York Times recipe tester Jill Santopietro, who has launched a new fun video blog called Tiny Kitchen. In one of her latest entries, she makes a simple Roquefort salad, using greens, walnuts, apples and crumbled cheese. The video is filled with tips on washing salad, making homemade dressing and making your own caramelized nuts. She also, surprisingly, sprinkles her apples with pepper. “You would never imagine how good it is,” she says.
But the biggest revelation for me was her method for dressing the salad. Ms. Santopietro explains that in restaurants, chefs don’t pour the salad dressing directly on the salad. Instead, they use a bottle to squeeze it onto the sides of the bowl. Then they toss the salad against the edges of the bowl to evenly coat the greens.
If you’ve ever overdressed a salad (I ruined a great chopped salad at Thanksgiving with too much dressing), then you will appreciate this tip. Make sure you check out Jill’s new video blog (posted above) to watch her demonstrate the method.
And to learn more about Jill and the origins of the Tiny Kitchen video blog, read “Now Screening: Tiny Kitchen Cooking Videos” from the Moment blog.
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From 1 to 25 of 38 Comments
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this video.
It’s the tiny kitchen thing….which I know so well….and this salad is emblematic of great, unpretentious food and cooking.
Anyone, who ever traveled to Greece, Turkey, or Italy has had, or COULD HAVE HAD the life-changing experience of the amazing salad. What’s life-changing about it, is that it doesn’t need to be a “de-constructed,” prissy little pile of stuff, with a thin squiggly drizzle of balsamic-something dressing all around it. It’s actually REGULAR food! And it actually sings in the mouth! And it doesn’t cost half a tank of gas, either!
Why not, indeed, dress our own salads? Why rely on the ooo-ey, gooey salad dressings Americans love to use?
And why not teach Americans these very basic, important elements…washing and drying the greens, basic proportions for the dressing, and so forth.
I hope the economic realities of the coming couple of years brings Americans back into the kitchen, to do some real (but not fancy or complicated) food preparation. I really, really hope so.
FROM TPP — I really liked it to. I just discovered it myself. That Jill Santopietro is totally charming and the salad looks great.
— WesleyYes, TPP, glad you mentioned Jill, because she is a big part of the charm.
And again, it’s because she’s so real….a real person, making real food, and teaching others that it doesn’t have to be so daunting.
Of course, there’s knowledge behind the simplicity (things are complicated before they get simple), such as the walnut-toasting, which makes a huge difference. And the tip about dressing the bowl….and more (bet she knows how to choose a great hunk of cheese, too).
But even without the special flourishes and the variety of greens, and on and on, Jill could have taught us how to make simpler, fewer ingredients taste great.
— WesleySuch good food.
Unfortunately, to many Americans a salad means using iceberg lettuce (which has no nutritional value) and drenching it with high fat, high salt salad dressing. Other variants include adding potato salad swimming in mayo. This lettuce essentially becomes nothing more than a vehicle for gobs of salt and fat.
— jackTPP, good luck with your forays into the world of better cooking–and better eating!
— HeronI’d liek to propose a different kind of salad — all vegetables and no greens! Before you protest, read on…
In brief, cut carrots, seeded bell peppers (different colors), peeled cukes into 1/2″-1″ chunks (you can steam the carrot chunks for two minutes if you like), maybe celery and radish too, also chunked. Add cherry/grape tomatoes, and chopped scallion. Finally, for a Greek touch, add pitted black and/or green olives (small sizes), water-canned artichoke hearts quartered, maybe hearts of palm chunks. Finish with your favorite chopped herb (cilantro, basil, etc).
Try other veggies too, but beware that cauliflower causes it to age must faster when stored.
Make a lot in a big bowl and mix it all together thoroughly. Scoop a hearty serving into a bowl, sprinkle with feta cheese, add a little olive oil, mix again and serve.
You can store the uneaten salad nicely in the fridge for a couple of days, but keep draining off any water that accumulates in the bottom. It also helps to spin-dry it before storing.
Without greens, this salad holds together nicely and you get a cross section in every forkful. Everybody who has this loves it — both texture and flavor — and asks for the “recipe.” I sometimes have a big helping as the main dish for a meal.
OK, you need greens for the nutrients, but IMHO, greens go ~under~ a salad, not ~in~ it. Or get your foliates some other way — like a good Caesar salad — than trying to mix with texturally incompatible veggies. Especially when the “greens” are iceberg lettuce, it’s really just filler for restaurants to keep the cost of ingredients low and still claim it’s a ~vegetable~ salad.
FROM TPP — No protest from me. I’m all about more flavor per bite
— David LewisHi TPP:
It seems that in your (interesting) blog, each time you write about food/recipes, you say something like you’re not much of a cook.
Are you apologizing or bragging? In either case, why? Is cooking such a big deal? I agree that it’s essential to know how to cook (and drive, and change a light bulb and manage your money, etc), and you don’t have to like to cook to do a basic competent job; so why mention it?
Curious ….
FROM TPP — I probably say it too often. My point is that I’m not a food writer and I’m not even personally skilled in the kitchen, so I always feel the need to inform readers of this when I’m writing about food. I struggle in terms of both time and skill in preparing healthful food, so I’m always interested in easy recipes and ways to do better. In this post, however, I was saying that despite my lack of skill generally, I’m pretty darn good at salad making, particularly at making salads kids will eat. It’s my one culinary skill…
— SMade the salad in four minutes and was delighted with the results. the peppered apple and dressing with two oils were great additions to my usual recipe.
— georgeAnother nice thing in salads is slices of hard boiled eggs. Put them in after tossing so they don’t fall apart. Put a little bit of pepper or salt or dressing on them.
— ellieI always make the dressing in the bowl, and then just mix in the ingredients slowly to dress the salad. That way you don’t have to use anything else to make the dressing.
— CorieWe need a Society for the Protection and Preservation of Iceberg Lettuce, one of my favorite things.
— ellieDavid Lewis:
Nice suggestion. Great way to have a side-dish ready, waiting, and in the fridge, too (cuts down on small kitchen frenzy at time of cooking a meal).
Also, maybe a good way to encourage more veg’s for my not-so-veggie kinda guy (artful selection of veg’s plus tasty dressing, and a relish-y/salad-y type of context).
But I also love my salad greens…..cut in small pieces, washed and dried just right, and coated thinly with perfect dressing….can’t beat them.
Looking forward to more suggestions!
— WesleyAbout a teaspoon of sesame oil and a tablespoon of frozen orange juice (or any frozen juice) concentrate make a good salad dressing, which for me might include high quality frozen vegetables. Adjust for taste. Life is good. Eat food (not chemicals)
— Debby GildenI like a cabbage salad, too. There is a great one in the Good Housekeeping cookbook for 1955 called Green-Pepper Slaw. It has a vinegar and oil dressing and just a tiny bit of sugar — not the usual syrup-like stuff. I make it often because I really am not fond of the usual mayonnaise or boiled dressing kind of coleslaw.
— Betty LouannI do appreciate the tip on putting the dressing around the side of the bowl. I, too, have over dressed salads.
I just do a vinaigrette with with shallots and an herb and dry mustard in a separate bowl and will now pour it around the edges of the bowl rather than on top of the greens.
I make my own tasty greens combination — escarole, raddichio, watercress, butter crunch lettuce perhaps some radishes or fennel.
I never use store bought dressings. They are very heavy and rarely are made with 100% extra virgin olive oil. Then we sprinkle blue cheese or goat cheese or feta on top. Nuts are nice, too.
Growing up I NEVER ate salads. Now I love ‘em because, like you, I add interesting & delicious stuff to them. Like left-over Black Bean Mango quinoa salad or Cold Peanut Soba Noodles with veggies.
Here’s my brand new salad dressing find. I take a mini-container of it to work to dip carrots into–and use it as salad dressing for dinner.
This is just one of many variations & flavors–and I discovered this from Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Eat for Health. (& no I have nothing to do with Fuhrman–I’m just a medical librarian who likes to cook)
Orange Cashew Dressing/Dip
2 oranges, peeled and quartered
1/3 cup raw cashews
2 TBS Blood Orange Vinegar (this was hard to find–but I found out later it’s online)
1/2 tsp. lemon juice (optional)
Blend all ingredients in a high powered blender (I have a Vitamix-but others should work) until smooth and creamy. Add some orange juice to thin if necessary.
It thickens in the fridge & it make a lot.
http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/
— The Healthy LibrarianForgot to mention–if you don’t want to make your own salad dressing, but you’re looking for something with healthy oil (canola oi/olive oil)l–but not too much–and real whole food ingredients–take a look at:
Wild Thymes Salad Refreshers. Flavors like: Meyer Lemon Tangerine, Raspberry, Pomegranate to name a few.
1 TBS=32 calories & 2.6 grams of fat (none sat)
Delicious!
— The Healthy LibrarianFruit in salad may appeal to some kids, but it’s also a common childhood hatred and a reasonably common adult dislike. Not that you sholdn’t do it if you and your family like it, but if you are trying to tempt kids into going for salad, it helps to know that some kids react to sweet stuff in salad as strange and disgusting.
— BerylLove the salad w/o the greens! I do this all the time!! You can also get more veggies in per square inch of your bowl because you are not wasting space with the leafy greens!!!
I usually do tomatoes, carrots, pepper, raw broccoli, black beans/kidney beans, onion, zucchini, and raw asparagus cut into little chunks.
— dgWesley:
Thanks! As I said, I often make a whole meal out of that green-less salad — though I’ll admit to more than a sprinkle of feta cheese.
As for greens — yes, I like ‘em too, but on their own. What prompted this salad is that tossing greens with veggies never worked for me — the textures are incompatible when tossed; the veggies just sink to the bottom. It’s a mystery to me how this became so popular in the US, except perhaps for the marketing reason I mentioned. I don’t think Europeans every had (or will have) such a dish. (Oh, yes, now I remember that the original inspiration came from Moosewood’s (the restaurant, not the cookbooks) green-less tossed salad.
Also, forgot to mention garbanzos and slightly sprouted lentils as other good additions, plus toasted nuts, slightly steamed broccoli florets, maybe even some baked tofu cubes, sesame sticks, croutons… possibilities are endless, once you ditch the greens and get the style.
I also make a variation with lots of fresh mung, broccoli, alfalfa, etc sprouts and less veggies. The trouble with that is that it’s often hard to find properly fresh sprouts in the market, so the salad doesn’t keep very well. Guess I should sprout my own.
— David LewisLove the salad video. Thanks TPP for posting even though it apparently irks many when you post videos (please don’t start that flame war again. You know who you are!)
I make a fresh green salad every night and do a simple vinaigrette (olive oil, vinegar and a dollop of dijon to emulsify plus a little salt and pepper) or just olive oil and red wine vinegar if I’m really being lazy. I also will home make buttermilk dressing if we are feeling “ranchy.”
My husband and I particularly enjoy avocados and grapefruit on a bed of greens (usually baby lettuces mix or romaine). Add a couple of red onion rings, some homemade croutons (which I do myself…nothing is easier to make) and maybe some crumbled blue cheese. A very fine salad. Because I live where it’s cold a lot of the year, I suppose salad is not very “green,” but we do love it. We grow our own greens in season or buy at the Farmers’ Market so I kind of rationalize it’s OK to buy them out of season now. Probably not, but well, sorry. I enjoy frozen fruit, like berries, on salad.
If I were to put either hard boiled eggs or garbanzos on the salad my spouse would reject as he hates both.
— Kim from NebraskaI suggest the following salad :
arugula, chopped
tomatoes , chopped
avocado, chopped
mild or aged goat cheese, sliced
pine nuts
chopped walnuts
pomegranate seeds
salt
pepper
olive oil
lemon juice
simple, healthy and delicious!
— nppWe make two salads here that go under the names “favorite salad #1″ and “favorite salad #2.” Number One starts with a base of mixed baby greens and is lavishly garnished with blue cheese, dried cherries, toasted walnuts (and occasionally roasted pumpkin seed), chives from the garden, and always poppy seed dressing. (I like Briana’s.)
Number Two is a base of greens with goat cheese feta crumbles, fresh and/or sun-dried tomatoes, chives, dried currants, toasted almonds and/or pine nuts, and a tahini-based dressing (like Annie’s Goddess dressing).
As long as we have fresh carrots in the garden (which is pretty nearly always now!), I’ll grate some of those on either salad. Fresh sweet peppers make a nice addition too. Of course, you can add poultry strips to make it a meal.
— KimFor those of you recommending adding hard-boiled eggs to salads: What’s the best way to peel the things? I tried making them for the first time the other day, and ended up picking off lots of little shell pieces. I followed Betty Crocker’s directions, including submersing the eggs in really cold water after cooking. Thanks!
— HeronNice video, really nice salad. I store my greens the same way.
Does anyone know why she used plastic wrap over the salad dressing bottle? Does it keep the oil from oozing into the ridges of the screw cap?
FYI, the classic french vinaigrette has
1 part good vinegar
1 part good dijon mustard
salt & pepper
mix and stir in:
2 parts oil
Quite simple.
— AllisonI had the most wonderful salad at Osteria Mozza the other night: butter lettuce, sliced boiled egg, gorgonzola, and toasted hazelnuts in a light, lemony dressing. It was the highlight of my meal.
— RunningHow neat– she makes the same vinaigrette I do — with the same brand of sherry vinegar! The only difference is I add one tablespoon of brown sugar, which is really nice if you’re using a creamy, salty cheese like roquefort. My daughter will drink the dressing if I don’t stop her.
I love the idea of the peppered apples and will try tomorrow!
— francois