I love salad. I eat it almost every day: as a meal, as a side, sometimes as a side to another salad. What I don’t like is a bad salad, and I’ve had hundreds of those, often made by me. Baby spinach tossed with watery feta and stale almonds; dried cranberries with even drier quinoa; roast pumpkin and beetroot swimming in oil – the list goes on.
Salad is probably one of the most vague and confusing food categories. It could include gado gado, raw beef larb, dressed herring and even “jello salad”. But the kind I’m talking about here is the typical leafy green and dressed variety found in homes and restaurants across the Anglo world.
There are a thousand salad recipes out there, but each tells you how to make one specific salad, not a thousand. Yet once you’ve mastered the basics, a thousand salads is about how many you’ll be able to make. From the importance of spinning to salting your dressing, we asked some Australian cooks, chefs and fresh produce enthusiasts for their tips on making a great salad.
What is the salad for?
Knowing where a salad fits into a meal is the first step to getting it right. Mark Best, chef-owner of the now-closed Marque and culinary adviser to Melbourne’s Ritz-Carlton, says a hearty main should be paired with a simple, light salad – just greens with a little bit of lemon and olive oil.
If the salad is part of a table spread – like at a bring-a-plate dinner party – think about the other dishes, and keep it simple. “At dinner parties everyone tries to showcase their prowess, going hard on the salad, whereas a simpler approach is often better,” Best says.
If it is a stand-alone meal, you have room for heartier ingredients. Best, for example, likes a good caesar salad: cos lettuce, croutons and bacon, plus a creamy mayonnaise dressing of coddled eggs, mustard, peanut oil, plenty of good quality anchovies and lots of pepper.
Choose your leaves (and keep them dry)
When it comes to salad greens, there is more out there than rocket, baby spinach and lettuce. Sneh Roy, the author of recipe blog Cook Republic, loves curly endive (also known as frisee, it has a crisp lettuce-like head with frizzy, bitter leaves) and the soft leaves of mignonette lettuce.
Thanh Truong, a second-generation fruiterer who also goes by the moniker Fruit Nerd, loves micro-greens (particularly lemon balm), the “punchy and sour” notes of sorrel (if you can find it), and fresh herbs. “Mint is completely underrated … It’s so herbaceous, perfumey and vibrant,” he says.
And there is no shame in buying a pre-mixed pack of salad leaves. Truong says the combination of leaves are chosen for flavour and balance. “They’ve been specifically curated by the grower so that it’s hitting different points.”
Truong says rocket is peppery, and radicchio is dry and bitter. Meanwhile butter lettuce is soft and silky; red oak variety is mild and nutty, while iceberg leaves are juicy.
And he says the salad spinner is your most important tool. “I can’t stress that enough. Water on a salad is just a mistake. If there is a little bit of water you’re diluting the dressing and everything is going to drip to the bottom. It’s the cardinal sin of salad.”
Or choose no leaves
“Not all salads need to have leaves,” says Hetty McKinnon, cookbook author and salad enthusiast. “Of the hundreds of salad recipes I have written over the past decade, leaves are rarely the main player. I use leaves to add freshness and lightness.”
Choose your vegetables, grains and ‘comfort’ ingredients
McKinnon instead prefers to base her salad on other vegetables – whatever is in season, plus grains and legumes. Her recipes often call for vegetables like capsicums, pumpkin and onion to be roasted, grilled or sauteed; pearl barley, quinoa and lentils are often simmered in salted water or stock.
Sneh Roy always adds “comfort” ingredients to her salads: “Something that you are looking forward to finding in your bowl, it can be something hearty or creamy, like a cheese or protein.” She is a fan of chickpeas in particular, and says they aren’t used nearly enough.
And you can put anything in a salad, but balance is the key.
McKinnon says: “If I’m using a bitter vegetable like brussels sprouts, I might think about balancing that with a hint of sweetness in the dressing. For sweet vegetables like sweet potato or pumpkin, I will add spice to heighten earthiness or layer in a sharp, salty element like cheese.
“Starchy veg like potatoes benefit from lots of herbs to add liveliness. Sometimes I’ll opt for big hits of acidity to bring excitement to mild-mannered vegetables like cabbage or carrot.”
As salads generally include a lot of sour and bitter flavours, fruit can be incredibly useful to provide sweetness as well as texture. Thanh Truong recommends pomelo, pomegranate seeds, pear and peaches.
Add crunch and texture
A good salad should be texturally interesting – and it helps to think about contrasts. Avocado on top of rocket can make a soggy mess, but avocado with the crunch of thinly sliced sugar snap peas will contrast beautifully.
But sometimes, says Mark Best, you might want to double down on a particularly satisfying texture. He likes cos lettuce, crisp bacon and croutons – a triple-crunch combination.
McKinnon says not to underestimate whole spices. “I love coating [roast] vegetables with cumin, fennel or caraway seeds which become crunchy in the oven, adding more texture to the salad.”
Like Best, she recommends croutons, as well as nuts and seeds. Truong says nuts and seeds are almost always better toasted. “But, let’s face it, not everyone has all the time. I think everyone has had the situation where they leave the nuts on the stove and two seconds later they’re black.” He says store-bought roasted nuts are a good shortcut – smoked almonds are his favourite.
The size of each salad ingredient is also important. Consider tabbouleh, where all the ingredients are chopped very finely, so you taste everything in one mouthful. Roy is a huge fan of the chopped salad genre. “I love it when you get seven or eight different elements on a single spoonful,” she says. But if not, at least make it bite-size. No one wants to be chewing on a salad leaf that’s half hanging outside their mouth.”
There’s more to dressings than olive oil and balsamic
Extra virgin olive oil plus balsamic vinegar is the routine dressing of many Anglo households, but Best says both ingredients are grossly overused. “Pouring half a cup of balsamic over baby spinach is wrong, it should only be used specifically.”
He recommends balsamic for tomatoes and radicchio (the vinegar’s sweetness balances the bitterness). He encourages cooks to experiment with other vinegars – rice wine, red wine and white wine – plus sour fruit like lemon.
In some cases, Best recommends using neutral oils instead of extra virgin olive oil, particularly for emulsified dressings (where the oil and other liquids have been whisked to combine into a viscous, almost creamy liquid). One classic emulsified dressing is oil with vinegar and mustard. “Virgin olive oil is too powerful, it can be really aggressive and bitter. Use a light fruity olive oil or a neutral one like grapeseed.”
Both McKinnon and Roy use spice liberally in their dressings. McKinnon says ground cumin can add a lot of interest to a lemon-y vinaigrette, while Roy uses minced chilli, garlic and ginger in dressings for heartier salads. If you’re using garlic, she suggests making the dressing before preparing the salad, so the garlic has a bit of time to settle. “I don’t want it tasting raw. [The garlic is] like ceviche, it cooks in the acid.”
McKinnon and Roy are big fans of tahini dressings too. One of McKinnon’s favourites is a simple concoction of tahini, water and lemon.
And it may sound obvious, but it’s important to taste the dressing. Roy says it should taste strong, but balanced. “When it goes into a whole bowl of other ingredients it will mellow.” If it’s too sour, she says, try adding more salt or sweetness such as sugar or honey. If it’s not sour enough, add acidic ingredients like vinegar or citrus. If it’s too intense, dilute with oil or, if it’s a creamy tahini dressing, with water.
McKinnon says: “The world of dressings is limitless … as long as you remember the basic principles of balance.”
Always add salt
“It is a crime not to season our food, salad included,” says McKinnon. Adding salt to your dressing, is the simplest, easiest and most effective way to do it.
Salt any cooked ingredients as well, including roast vegetables, sauteed onions and the cooking water for any grains, she says.
“Salad making is very much about layering of flavours and if one layer has not been seasoned, you will taste it in the final dish,” she says. “As my mother always says, a little bit of salt brings out all the flavour.”
And good quality salt goes a long way. Truong says due to the extreme heat involved in making table salt, it can add unpleasant bitter flavours to your salad. Look for sea salt instead.
Serve at room temperature
McKinnon says: “When food is cold, flavour is muted and your taste buds cannot pick up the nuances in the dish.”
Her only exception to this rule is cold noodle salads. “Soba noodle salads taste great cold and straight from the fridge.”
And dress the salad only when you are ready to eat. The salt in the dressing can cause greens to sweat and make your salad soggy, as anyone who has eaten a leftover salad will know.
And the last step in making a good salad is actually making them – making a lot of them, in many different ways, with many different ingredients. Like everything, you only get better with practice.
“We should not put salad in a box, figuratively. Over the years, people often ask me: ‘What makes something a salad?’ or ‘How can a salad have no leaves?’” says McKinnon. “To me, anything can be a salad.”
