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GREEK SALAD WITH OREGANO-LACED VINAIGRETTE

BEST PASTA SALAD

OLD-FASHIONED ICEBERG WEDGES WITH LUXURIOUS BLEU CHEESE DRESSING

ORIGINAL-ISH WALDORF SALAD

CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD WITH SOY-GINGER-SESAME VINAIGRETTE

WILTED SPINACH SALAD WITH HAZELNUTS, GOAT CHEESE, AND GOLDEN RAISINS

TACO SALAD WITH CUMIN-LIME-CILANTRO DRESSING

A Salad a Day

A salad should be a thing of beauty, not duty. Salads can be colorful, filled with flavor, easy and inexpensive to make, and, generally speaking, a brilliant vegetable delivery system.

I’m about to teach you how to make a stellar tossed green salad—beautifully and often. In addition, I’ve included in this chapter some popular standards (pasta salad, potato salad, cole slaw, three-bean) that you can enjoy for picnics (outdoors on a Saturday in the spring, or at your desk on a winter Wednesday) or as easy dinners, supplemented with soup and bread. Many of these keep well and can be made in advance and eaten over a period of days as meals or snacks.

Think of these recipes as templates to which you can add other ingredients to fit your taste and appetite. Salads are a great place to experiment with becoming a more improvisational cook, because you really can’t go wrong. Also, most, if not all, of these recipes welcome the addition of cooked meat or strips of omelet or tofu, so they can be elevated easily to main-dish status.

TOSSED GREEN SALAD BASICS

I want to say, right out of the gate, that there is no excuse (and no need)—ever—for bringing a package of plain salad greens to the table along with a bottle of dressing. If you think this is a real way to serve green salad, a wonderful upgrade awaits you in these pages.

Homemade dressing can be so much better than the bottled kind that it’s almost a different category of food altogether. And there is no comparison between a plate of limp greens with an indiscriminate puddle of dressing simply dumped on and a carefully tossed, perfectly and evenly coated plateful of crisp leaf-heaven.

ABOUT SALAD DRESSINGS IN GENERAL

For some reason, many people are blocked when it comes to making salad dressing. Hence the wild success of the bottled stuff, which is always ridiculously overpriced and, in my opinion, never great. Once you whip them up (and as you’ll see, that’s not hard to do), homemade dressings can be kept in jars in the refrigerator, so they’re just as convenient as store-bought ones. They keep for months and take up very little space. So start saving little jars—like the ones mustard comes in—to use for mixing and storing salad dressing.

In this chapter, in addition to the Five Most Wanted dressings, many of the recipes list the dressing ingredients separately—so if you like, you can make one of those dressings on its own and keep it on hand to use with your own combinations of salad ingredients. Also try these dressings as sauces on warm cooked vegetables, on cold leftover cooked vegetables, or on plain cooked chicken or fish.

The ratio of dressing to salad in these recipes is on the generous side. Add most, but not all, of the dressing to begin with. Then toss and taste. You might want to stop right there, or add more, or pass extra dressing at the table so people can add as much as they like.

About mayonnaise If you want to use reduced-fat mayo, look for a good brand, one that is not full of sugar. I prefer full-fat regular mayo made with no added sugar. I tend to lighten it by mixing it with low-fat or nonfat yogurt in a ratio of about 3 or 4 parts yogurt to 1 part mayo. This scheme works very nicely, and is fresher tasting and better for you than “lite” mayo.

About buttermilk Buttermilk is another secret ingredient that adds a subtle creaminess to various dressings (like Bleu Cheese, Creamy Balsamic, and more). It’s very much like a liquid yogurt—a cultured low-fat product that contributes both heft and tang without adding much fat.

About yogurt As I mentioned above, I like to use yogurt in conjunction with mayonnaise. This brings out the best traits of both