Salad Fundamentals, after the jump
Via Facebook:
Q: "what are your favorite kinds of salads to make?"
My basic salad usually consists of spring greens/romaine, kale, tomatoes (I like to cut grape tomatoes in half), avocado, and bell peppers. That's a good base to build more complex salads.
Other toppings can include: cucumber, hard-boiled egg, bacon, onion/shallots, mushrooms, olives, green beans, sun-dried tomatoes, grated or crumbled cheese.. I used to use chickpeas and kidney beans often, but I avoid legumes now. If you eat those, they're delicious to add to salads!
If I have prepared chicken or turkey, I'll often tear it into little pieces and add it to a basic salad. You can heat the meat first or use it cold. I often have curried chicken prepared for the week (chicken prepared in a coconut curry sauce), so when I have that I microwave some up with the sauce and then add kale, cabbage, or Swiss chard, and then top it with cucumbers. This is easily one of my favorite salads, EVER. The kale holds the rich curry sauce beautifully, and the cucumbers balance the intensity of the flavors.
I typically don't mix fruit into salads, as I tend to separate savory and sweet flavors, but another favorite salad of mine includes baby greens (particularly mache greens), avocado, and grapefruit sections with a dressing that consists of crème fraiche, chopped shallots, lime juice, extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's a truly incredible salad.. such an original combination of flavors. The dressing alone is worth it.
There are a few important fundamentals to making excellent salads.
One, fresher ingredients are obviously going to yield better salads. One of the most key elements to a salad is the texture of its ingredients: how crisp the veggies are, how the textures play against each other (I really enjoy the texture of avocado against crispy things.. avocado can really round out flavors and textures, and is extremely nutritious).. also, the size of the ingredients can affect the texture of a salad.
Two, consider the combination of flavors. As I said before, I don't really like adding fruit to my salads as I find the sweetness doesn't typically complement them. The sweetest I tend to go is with roasted red peppers, but even those or things like caramelized onions can be too sweet for my tastes. Certain ingredients can provide excellent contrast or really pull a salad together. Balance is important when choosing ingredients.
Three, play with the balance of ingredients within a salad. Depending on what you want from a salad, you may want to tweak the ratios of what you include. For example, if I want a salad heavier on protein, I'll make sure meat is one of the primary ingredients. I also try to make sure I include a lot of kale, since it's a nutrition goldmine. Some ingredients are extremely flavorful, so you would likely go easy on them: sun-dried tomatoes and onions are good examples. The balance on ingredients is something you'll learn to adapt when you've had practice at making salads.. you may find that some salads need a bit more dressing while some don't need any at all, depending on how you balance the ingredients.
You can also draw inspiration for salad ideas from favorite sandwiches or salads you purchase. I work in a restaurant, and I often order their sandwiches or wraps as salads - just take away the bread and put the other ingredients over greens. I recently had a salad that consisted of spring greens, roasted turkey, bacon, blue cheese, roasted red peppers, and I think grilled onions.. this is an example of a salad that didn't even need dressing, as the bacon and blue cheese provided such strong flavor. The roasted red peppers and grilled onions rounded out their saltiness nicely, too.
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