Salads

Salads are the perfect vehicle for making your own recipe! In fact, almost anything could be made into a salad.

From a culinary perspective, there are many different types of salads:

• Appetizer salads – stimulate appetite with flavors and appearance but don’t fill
• Accompaniment salad– must complement the main dish; should be light and flavorful
• Main-Course salad– should contain a substantial portion of protein
• Separate-Course salad– cleanse palate and refresh appetite; must be light
• Dessert Salads – sweet and contain fruits, gelatin and nuts

The structure of a salad should include the following components:

• Base or Underliner
• Body
• Garnish – edible decorative item added for eye appeal – simple
• Dressing – seasoned liquid added to the body of salad for flavor, tartness, spiciness and moistness

Salads can be classified into the following categories:

• Green Salads
• Vegetable, Grain, Legume and Pasta Salads
• Bound salads – held together with a dressing such as mayo
• Fruit Salads
• Composed Salads
• Gelatin Salads
  • Gelatin dissolves in water at 100* and is mixed with cold liquid to avoid lumping; For flavored gelatin sweetened with sugar, use 24 oz of gelatin per gallon of water; For unflavored gelatin, use 2.5 oz per gallon of liquid; The setting power is weakened by acids so salads need more gelatin; Raw pineapple and papaya shouldn’t be added to gelatin  

The incredible diversity of salad greens available makes salad recipes easy to create. You can choose from wonderful offerings such as:

Iceberg	Romaine or Cos	Boston	Bibb or Limestone
Loose-leaf	Escarole or Broad-leaf Endive	Chicory or Curly Endive	Frisee
Belgian endive or Witloof Chicory	Chinese Cabbage	Spinach	Watercress
Arugula	Mesclun – mixture of tender baby lettuce	Baby Lettuces	Sprouts
Microgreens	Tatsoi	Mizuna – Japanese mustard greens	Mache – corn salad, lamb’s lettuce/tongue, field salad
Radicchio	Treviso	Dandelion Greens

To enhance the flavor of your base ingredients, prepare one of the following types of dressings:

• Oil and vinegar – ratio for vinaigrette is 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar
• Mayonnaise-based – lecithin in egg is stabilizer
• Cooked dressing – similar to mayo but made with starch thickener

And even when it comes to oil, you have so many choices to make your own recipe:

• Corn – golden color but almost tasteless
• Cottonseed, soybean, canola and safflower – all tasteless and commonly used for salad oil blends
• Peanut – more expensive but provides a mild yet unique flavor
• Olive – very distinctive flavor and aroma; while much more expensive, extra virgin is the best because it’s made from the first press of the olives
• Walnut – very special taste but expensive and highly perishable
• Winterized – treated to remain clear when chilled

Vinegar (or other acids such as citrus) provide further options for customization:

• Cider – made from apples; brown and sweet
• White – distilled and purified so neutral flavor
• Wine – white or red wine-like flavor
• Flavored – another product added
• Sherry – made from sherry wine
• Balsamic – dark brown; wine vinegar aged in wood barrels

To get ideas for how to start making your own dressing recipes, check out this post:

• The Secret to the Perfect Vinaigrette