Prepare Salad Without Salad – Bold and Smart
Edible leaves, commonly referred to as “lettuce” or “greens,” are often used as a salad base, and for good reasons. Leaves provide color, texture and nutrients, but they don’t “have to” be involved. It’s entirely possible to eat a bunch of vegetables drenched in dressing without any salad at all.
In fact, making a salad without leaves not only broadens your idea of what a “salad” can be, but it also makes you a more creative and adaptable chef and vegetable lover by removing an ingredient you may have relied on too much. strongly.
Use cruciferous vegetables
While it’s true that many cruciferous vegetables have leaves, some don’t (broccoli, cauliflower and that weird hybrid stuff), and some have leaves that don’t work on lettuce. kind by the way (Brussels sprouts).
Choose a cruciferous base – broccoli is a pretty popular base for salads on its own – and blanch or sauté it, depending on the ambiance you’re trying to create. Many broccoli salad recipes require chopping raw broccoli, but I find the dry, fibrous texture of raw broccoli quite unpleasant, even when coated with mayonnaise. If you’re working with Brussels sprouts, chop and salt to soften , or quarter and bake for a hearty base.
After you’ve removed the raw edges from the vegetables or toasted them to hell for extra flavor, add cheese (or, if you’re a vegan, nutritional yeast or cashew-based cheese substance), something salty and crunchy ( for example bacon or fried onions), more vegetables (onions are a must, but radishes are underestimated for this quality), perhaps even fruit. Mix it all with a sour vinaigrette . (You know, I love the mayonnaise-based salad, but we don’t do that today.)
Place it on a bowl of grain
The line between the cereal “bowl” and the cereal “salad” is not clear, but I think it is a matter of portions and distribution. A grain bowl contains fewer grains, which are on the bottom of the bowl, and proteins and other substances are on top of those grains. Sometimes a sauce is used, but rarely a dressing. Cereal salads are mostly cereal, with added dressings and herbs, with alternating vegetables and fruits. These are just trends that I have noticed, but there are no hard and fast rules for them.
There are many recipes for both cereal salads and bowls, but you can turn any salad into a cereal one by removing the salad and replacing it with about a cup of cooked grains. It’s especially good as a base for Italian minced salad, especially when mixed with a whole bunch of fresh oregano and parsley, and a red wine vinaigrette. Regardless of which salad you choose, make sure you cut the other ingredients into chunks and dice so they are small enough – small enough to pop into your mouth (shoveling is the right movement to get the grains into your mouth).
Make a fruit salad
Fruit salads don’t have to be sweet. The savory vinaigrette adds shine to the fruit much more effectively than the marshmallow spiked fruit salads you might be used to. Have you ever heard of Caprese? This is a fruit salad and is unsweetened. Not only does the caprese format go well with strawberries and stone fruits , the fruit + cheese + herb combination can be used to turn almost any fruit (excluding bananas, for example) into a savory salad masterpiece. I’ve shared my suggestions before, but to recap, I’ll share some of my favorites again:
- Strawberry + feta + mint
- Apples + blue cheese + (crispy if you dare) sage
- Watermelon + cotia + cilantro
- Figs + goat cheese + thyme
- Peaches + burrata + basil
Include the root vegetable
I’m sure you’ve heard of potato salad, but not all potato salad needs to be soaked in mayonnaise. Fried potatoes with a sour dressing and a whole bunch of herbs, onions and other vegetables (favorite root vegetables like radishes and thinly sliced beets) and crispy fried mushrooms make the salad very filling, but still full of plants. … (This strategy works just as well with sweet potatoes.)
Beets are another obvious root vegetable staple. I like to salt my roast whole and then chop or dice them and keep them in the refrigerator until I need them. Add some toasted pecans, a bunch of fresh parsley, red onions, a few tiny tomatoes, and some goat cheese and I have a very satisfying salad for lunch or a light light dinner.
Just run into your fridge and chop it all up.
Sometimes the salad you want is the salad you already have, hiding in various sections of your fridge and waiting to be picked. As long as you have one strong and / or crunchy vegetable, you are golden.
Remove all food, including pickled food, from the refrigerator and cut into smaller pieces. Include any onion, be it one green onion or the last quarter of the red onion you are about to use up. Check your pantry for dried fruits or nuts and add them.
Take the fried chicken you cooked last night, slice it up and turn it crispy . If you don’t have chicken, thinly sliced chilled steak or pork and a can of canned tuna or a boiled egg will do .
If salad is languishing in your fridge, pour it into a bowl by all means – just know that you don’t need it . (And make sure it’s a large bowl . This is the only salad vessel you’ll need.)