Be a Salad Architect
For the best eating experience you want to build a tossed or composed salad in four parts: lay the foundation of a hearty base, build the structure with flavorful add-ins, add a glistening facade of dressing, and embellish with detail: croutons, cheese, dried fruit, and nuts. Read on to learn more.
A salad is the perfect opportunity to improvise in the kitchen and try new ingredient combinations. Think about where you'd like to go with your salad. Do you want it to be filling or light? Is it going to be the whole meal or just the starter? Once you've decided, you can play with ingredients.
Use a Combination of Greens
Create nuance and variety by pairing differently flavored or textured greens: bitter and mild (dandelion greens and red leaf lettuce), tender and crunchy (Bibb and frisée), or grilled and raw (charred radicchio and raw romaine).
Pick a Protein
Adding protein is an easy way to turn a side salad into a main-course meal. And you don't have to cook from scratch! Repurpose last night's leftover grilled chicken breast or green lentils into a protein-packed topping. Here are a few more ideas:
Seared or grilled steak
Poached or seared chicken
Seared, grilled, or roasted fish
Seared or baked tofu or tempeh
Balance Richness with Acidity
Pickled vegetables or fruit add a bright, sharp note and can cut through the richness of creamy dressings and ingredients like cheese or avocado. Try these easy recipes for Quick Giardiniera or Quick Pickled Red Onions.
Add Texture
A great salad is a riot of different textures. Make sure you've got them covered.
Creamy - Shaved or crumbled cheese, avocado, sour cream, hummus or yogurt
Crunchy - Croutons, toasted or spiced nuts and seeds like Spiced Pepitas
Crispy - Frico crumbles, fried shallots
Juicy - Fruit chunks, cucumber slices, tomato wedges
Dress It
To dress a salad, you will need about 1 tablespoon of dressing per 2 cups of washed and dried greens. Bolder vinaigrettes like the Make-Ahead Vinaigrette in this class work well with hearty or spicy greens like watercress or arugula. Milder dressings marry well with delicate greens like Bibb or iceberg lettuce.
