Salad Recipes
This is a salad of bold flavors, but somehow they all manage to work together well. Sweet corn tossed with peppery arugula, bacon, onion, cumin, and wine vinegar to balance the sweet corn, and you have stimulated all the major...
Winter in California is the season for arugula, along with many other lettuces. A few years ago we planted some in our garden and now each year the arugula re-seeds itself and takes over with a flourish, starting in December...
We eat a lot of cabbage around here. Could be my father's Minnesota German roots, but for whatever reason, coleslaw is on the menu several times a week. I recently had a lovely Asian coleslaw at a local grill, that...
Although for the most part we can get asparagus all year long, I usually only get them in the spring, when they are in season. How can you resist, when you see hundreds of them in the produce section, saluting...
Mark Bittman of the New York Times recently did a write up of simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less. This avocado tomato salad would be my entry, but in five minutes or less, and that would include picking...
What is it about a black bean salad that practically shouts, "summer potluck"? The mercury has been edging past a hundred degrees lately here and I've been getting nostalgic for some of the picnic foods I remember having often as...
Please welcome Garrett McCord who shares this delicious cancer-fighting fruit salad with us. ~Elise Recently my mom, Suzanne McCord, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was surprised when I heard the news, my mother is in her early sixties, but...
The problem with most broccoli salads is the broccoli - the raw broccoli. Some people like raw broccoli, and actually, I love raw broccoli stems. They taste a lot like cabbage or cauliflower. But the florets? If they're raw, keep...
Do a little research into the background of the caesar salad and you'll find that it is named not for some illustrious Roman emperor, but for Caesar Cardini, a Mexican chef working in Tijuana in the 1920s, who would dramatically...
The leaves are all down, apples, pomegranates, and persimmons all picked, days mostly overcast and dreary, save for neighborhood citrus trees with their orange and yellow orbs dotting the landscape with vivid color. Citrus trees love winter in California and...
Also known as celeriac remoulade, this salad is a refreshing accompaniment to seafood dishes and very easy to make. Celery root looks like a giant turnip, but tastes more like a cross between celery and jicama. The result is a...
Here's a festive salad for the holidays, and one that I think would be especially good paired with prime rib or roast beef. Blue cheese and celery is a classic combination and is especially good with the additions of dates...
Here it is September and this is the first cherry tomato salad I've had all summer. The culprit? My own greedy hands, the hands that pick them when I'm out in the garden and pop them in my mouth like...
I am not the most talented of gardeners. I over-water, under-water, over-fertilize, under-mulch. I plant little plants behind big plants, blocking out their sun. I then transplant my poorly placed plants to what I'm hoping will be a better location...
Arugula on its own is so peppery it can almost be too much. However, partnered with either walnuts, goat cheese, or in this case both, mellows the tanginess of the arugula. A perfect, light, luncheon salad.
I love this curry chicken salad. I made up this recipe 20 years ago after a friend of mine gave me a gift box of curry spices and have been making it ever since. It's quite easy to make. The...
My mother and father make the best chicken salad. It's a joint effort; dad assembles all of the ingredients, mom makes the dressing. There are a few things that distinguish this chicken salad recipe from a standard version. First, we...
Now here's a twist on a summer chicken salad. This one is inspired by the flavors of Spain, with roasted bell peppers, toasted almonds, garlic and parsley. Chicken breasts are first gently poached in chicken stock, to help the chicken...
Inspiration for good food can be found anywhere, even Starbucks, where I had a delicious chicken salad sandwich recently. The key ingredients other than chicken? Cranberries and tarragon. French tarragon is a distinctive herb, with a slight anise or licorice...
Fresh summer tomatoes, garbanzo beans (also known as chickpeas), hard boiled eggs, and sweet onions, tossed with a light vinaigrette - here are the makings of a surprisingly delicious summer salad. I made this for lunch yesterday from a recipe...
This Chinese chicken salad is a colorful and tasty way to use up some leftover chicken and makes for a light lunch. I experimented with few different dressings and ultimately settled on this one which I think is just the...
I don't know about you, but our family typically roasts a turkey that provides at least twice as much meat, if not more, as we actually need for our Thanksgiving meal, leaving us with many meals to plan using turkey...
Please welcome guest author Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook who shares one of his favorite chicken salads with us. ~Elise Not sure where I first heard of this variant on chicken salad, but I’ve been making it for...
Grated carrot salad has to be one of the easiest dishes in the world to prepare, as well as being pretty kid-friendly and good for you. The trick is to start with the best carrots you can find. Here is...
Cobb salad is the quintessential American salad, first pulled together on a whim by Robert Cobb of the former Los Angeles landmark Brown Derby restaurant when he needed to feed Sid Grauman late one night (1937). It was such a...
This delightful cold pea salad recipe comes from my friend Chigiy's friend Beth, who brought it to a recent BBQ. It calls for Smokehouse Almonds, but I think it could easily be made with tamari almonds too. Perfect for picnics...
The word "coleslaw" comes from the Dutch word, "koolsla", "kool" meaning cabbage and sla, salad. The word entered our English language from the Dutch in New York in the late 1700s. Since then it has been a featured side dish...
I first encountered a crab mango salad at Fringale, the exquisite French-Basque restaurant on 4th St. in San Francisco. Recently at a restaurant in LA I had another delicious crab mango salad, this time with avocado and surrounded by peeled...
Most crab lovers know that fresh crab pairs well with avocado. But have you ever tried it with roasted hazelnuts (also called Filberts)? I got this idea from a crab hazelnut pear appetizer prepared by Oregon chef Jason Stoller Smith...
About this time of year we start having cucumber salads almost every night with dinner. The cucumbers are growing a bit out of control in the garden, climbing up the tomato cages and all over the zinnias that line the...
When the hot weather hits, nothing is more cooling than a cucumber salad. Inspired by a fabulous cucumber salad shared with a friend at the Sea Salt restaurant in Berkeley, I canvassed my neighborhood grocers for some delicate Persian cucumbers...
We eat a lot of hot and spicy dishes around here; a great way to cool the palate is with the delicious combination of yogurt and cucumber. This easy-to-make cucumber salad, also called "tzatziki", is a refreshing accompaniment to spicy...
Ah, egg salad. Is there anything easier or more unpretentious? Chop up some hard boiled eggs, add a little mayo and voilà! Instant sandwich filling. Or salad fixings. Add some chopped celery for crunch, and maybe some chopped chives or...
Years ago when I was living in Japan I bought a high-tech rice cooker with a 14 hour timer and settings for white and brown rice. Occassionally I would make much too much rice, especially brown rice. Not wanting to...
Once again, we overdid it. I think no matter how many people actually end up coming for Thanksgiving dinner, we still make enough for 14 or more. This year's T-Day dinner seated 6 Thursday night, and then a follow up...
I'm on vacation this week, so am pulling forward a few recipes from the archives that we've recently updated. This gorgeous Greek salad is one of them, originally posted in 2005. So pretty, isn't it? And perfect for the hot...
A month ago or so I made some potato salad. I love potato salad and was well pleased with this one. Then the next week my father made his version of potato salad. It was great! Better than mine. The...
If you are firing up the grill this summer with fish or seafood, consider this fennel slaw as a fresh alternative to regular cabbage coleslaw to serve as a side. Even my father, who runs from fennel as if it...
Shaved fennel with Parmesan is one of my favorite combinations. Hank takes it up a notch with the addition of radicchio and endive. Enjoy! ~Elise This is one of my favorite salads. It's pretty to look at, crunchy and has...
Now here's a salad for the season. Our neighbor Pat stopped me yesterday and handed me a recipe for a beet and pomegranate salad that she had pulled from an old issue of Sunset magazine. Perfect timing, as the pomegranates...
Growing up in the 60s, one would encounter a lot more Jello salads than one does these days. My grandmother used to love to make gelatin salads for us - salads molded with Jell-O gelatin. One of her favorites included...
Updated Years ago, in the sixties, my grandmother came to live with us. She loved to bake, especially oatmeal raisin cookies and lemon meringue pie. She also loved to make Jell-O salads. As kids we loved Jell-O in all flavors...
Grapefruit and avocado are one of those natural food pairings, like lamb and mint, or dark chocolate and raspberries. They just taste good together. They are perfect for a summer salad when avocados are relatively cheap and the grapefruit from...
Please welcome Hank Shaw as he shares a favorite black-eyed pea salad. Perfect for hot summer days! ~Elise I spent much of my life thinking that black-eyed peas were a Southern thing, and then I worked in an Ethiopian restaurant...
There are, I think, three essential ingredients to this salad - corn, which you can grill or even prepare by toasting frozen kernels on the stovetop, onions, and cumin. The rest is a medley of whatever fresh vegetables you might...
A grilled onion salad. Why not? Grilled onions can be just as good chilled as hot, especially when you let them marinate in an herb dressing. The grilling produces all sorts of caramelized goodness in the onions, taming their bite...
Have you ever cooked with radicchio? Until recently I have only had it in salads. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, radicchio looks like a small head of red cabbage; you can usually find it in...
When you grow up in a big family on a limited budget, more likely than not one of those big picnic salads like potato salad or macaroni salad, is on the menu that week. Heck, we practically live on dad's...
Summer is tomato and basil season, and there is nothing better than heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil from the garden and fresh mozzarella cheese. What are "heirloom tomatoes"? Heirloom tomatoes are what tomatoes used to be before all of the...
Did you know that ranch dressing is the number one most popular type of salad dressing sold in America? Overtaking even the omnipresent Italian. According to Robb Walsh of the Houston Press Ranch likely got its start as buttermilk dressing...
My father found this recipe, by Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri, in the weekend Wall St. Journal and together we gave it a go. Dad's been feeling under the weather recently, so it was nice to have him back in recipe...
Are you familiar with jicama? This tuber looks like a seriously overgrown radish and is the root of a vine native to Mexico and Central America. The flesh is crunchy, mild, and even faintly sweet, and is often served with...
Living for a while in Japan does strange things to your food preferences. Instead of thinking, "eating seaweed? PHEW!" one gets a warm glow and a faraway look in one's eyes thinking, "Eating seaweed? Ahhh. Yummm. Which kind do I...
No, not that Martha. This Martha is a friend of my friend Suzanne, who prepared her favorite chicken salad for a gathering of girlfriends a while back. A great recipe for summer picnics (you might want to double the recipe).
One of our favorite ways to eat green beans is with salsa. The tomatoes, onions, chiles, spices, and vinegar perk up the beans in the most wonderful way. This bean salad recipe is sort of a riff on the salsa...
For the last couple of years, my neighbor Molly has been bringing this salad to our neighborhood potluck parties, and every time I go completely zonkers over it. The basic elements are mixed greens with pecans and goat cheese, tossed...
Jelled salads. So very very retro, except perhaps in Utah, where my friend Kalyn tells me Jell-O is the state fruit. Jelled salads and aspics became popular in America in the early part of the last century when food scientists...
When you have a week straight of over 100° temps, you start looking for cooler things to make. My mother whipped up this macaroni salad earlier this week and I think I ate half of the whole bowl. Think macaroni...
I don't know about you, but summer around here has us making potato salads more often than in other seasons. This is the latest one my mother put together; my father has made her make it several times since, and...
Please welcome Hank Shaw, who made this Moroccan-inspired chickpea salad for us the other day. It was outstanding! ~Elise I’ve always been a huge fan of North African food, and Moroccan food in particular. Moroccan culture is an old culture...
Every year around the Fourth of July, my friends Rich and Chigiy throw a huge barbecue party for their friends, and for number two son Dashiell, a July 4th baby. Every year, the talented Chigiy (pronounced "chi-gee") makes this terrific...
Salad Niçoise (pronounced nee-suaz) is essentially a French composed salad, much like our American Cobb salad, but with tuna, green beans, and potatoes, instead of chicken, bacon, and avocado. Salad Niçoise hails from Nice, on the Mediterranean Sea, though like...
Do you like artichoke hearts? We do! Please welcome Hank Shaw as he shares this delectable artichoke salad recipe. ~Elise One of my favorite artichoke heart recipes, this is a simple salad that is great on a warm spring afternoon...
Some dishes depend on one special ingredient, the absence of which gives you something rather ordinary, the inclusion of which creates something extraordinary. This is one of those dishes. This carrot salad comes from the Middle East, and depends on...
Here's an orange and beet salad to brighten up a Winter day. The peppery arugula complements the sweetness of the beets and oranges.
Oh the joys of summer! On the top of the list is fresh, ripe tomatoes, garden cucumbers, and basil that the more you cut, the more it grows. (Ever notice that basil is like a hydra? Cut one stem and...
Based on a tip in Alice Waters' new cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, that fuyu persimmons make a good fruit salad, I begged some just picked fuyus from my neighbor and fellow blogger Andrea and set about to make...
The season for potluck barbecues is here and a quick and easy dish to prepare for a gathering is pesto pasta salad. Spiral pasta catches and hold the bits of basil pesto. You can dress up the pesto and pasta...
I saw a tasty salad on Ben Trott's Vox page and just had to make it. It is a traditional French salad, called Salad Lyonnaise, made with frisée or curly endive, hot bacon, and a freshly poached egg. Not one...
From the recipe archive. First posted in 2005. Happy Labor Day weekend! ~Elise Summer. Outdoor barbecues, kids and swimming pools, burgers, hot dogs, and plenty of potato salad. We made a big batch of potato salad for a little family...
Summer is the season for cookouts and potato salad, isn't it? Our standard potato salad usually includes pickle juice and hard boiled eggs. Here's a completely different take on a summer potato salad, seasoned with mustard, bacon, and the taste...
My mother is a genius. She throws together the most simple of ingredients, and they are so good that I have to get up in the middle of a meal to write everything down, for in her words, "if you...
I distinctly remember the tall cans of dark pink salmon that used to be in our pantry when I was a kid. Although we could any time open a can of tuna or sardines and eat to our hearts content...
Hot days are upon us. A great way to cool off is with a refreshingly chilled salmon salad. This salad is also one way to use up leftover salmon from a summer barbecue. Easy and quick.
Will someone please tell me why it is 60°F and drizzly, at the end of May, here in Sacramento? For my Memorial Day BBQ, we huddled around the fireplace, while the brave ones (or those more appropriately dressed for the...
If the heat of the summer is getting to you, this is a lovely spicy pasta salad for a hot day. One recent morning, on a day when the mercury eventually hit 105°F, I made this vermicelli pasta early in...
When I announced I was making a fennel Parmesan salad, my father remarked something to the effect, "That sounds like something for 'ladies who lunch'." It does, doesn't it? The idea came from a recipe in the South Beach Diet...
The heat has finally arrived in Northern California, and with it, the need for some cooling pasta salads. Here's a simple and easy shrimp pasta salad made with those little pink shrimp that you can find in the freezer section...
What better way to cool down in the heat of summer than with a delicious cold salad? Freshly cooked shrimp and creamy avocado are a perfect match, especially with a crisp vinaigrette. The best news? It only takes a few...
One of the challenges of the holidays is keeping everyone fed when the family comes to town. We're always looking for dishes that can feed lots of people well, without a lot of hassle, and that are relatively easy to...
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord who prepared this fabulous salad for us the other day. Big, big hit. ~Elise "Very tangy and sweet! With just enough crunch from the peanuts." "It's so colorful and aromatic, you can just smell...
I make a great pie crust, my father, a killer meatloaf. My mother? She's the queen of salads. When the three of us cook together, which is more often than not, mom almost always gets salad duty, because she just...
"Needs more cheese." "Needs more vinegar." "Needs fewer olives." "You could add more spinach." My parents love it when I cook for them, especially when it's a new recipe and they get to be the taste testers. They happily put...
Fava beans are a gardener's dream. The come up early in Spring, they're easy to grow, and their roots fix nitrogen in the soil, helping to prepare the soil for vegetables planted later in the season. They are delicious, though...
Steak salad is such an easy and delicious thing to make with leftover steak. At a minimum it is simply slices of steak over salad greens with your preferred salad dressing. I tend to spiff mine up a bit with...
Evie suspected that when I tried her summer squash salad recipe that I would have to eat my words (no pun intended) regarding my mom being the only one who could prepare squash well. Well, I have eaten my words...
A few months ago I wrote a piece about parsley and what an important herb it is for brightening the flavor of foods. Several of you suggested that your favorite thing to make with parsley is tabbouleh, a middle eastern...
You know the cool thing about tarragon? You only have to plant it once. (Assuming you don't pull it up thinking it's a weed when it surprises you by coming up the second year. Yes, that would be me.) I...
Tailgate season is coming to a close, but we still have bowl games coming up, as well as the NFL playoffs. So humor me as I sneak this perfect tailgate dip into the lineup. Texas caviar, what a name! Credited...
3-bean salad is one of those quintessential American summer picnic foods. It's usually made with canned green beans instead of the cannellini white beans I'm using here. But I really don't care for canned green beans, so cannellini it is...
For the last few years my garden weeding routine has included the pulling up of a thick-stemmed ground cover plant with little yellow flowers that takes over the pathways around the garden beds. It's pretty actually, but to the gardening...
In spite of the oddly cool weather here in Sacramento, my tomatoes are growing swell. And there is nothing better to do with fresh home grown tomatoes on a summer day than have them in a cool, colorful salad. While...
Almost every other Friday growing up my mother would serve the family this tuna macaroni salad. With six kids she loved this standard; it was easy to make, filling, relatively inexpensive, and best, we all gobbled it up.
Like chicken caesar, Cobb salad is one of those standard salads that you can find on practically any American restaurant menu. It's a "composed" salad with avocados, bacon, chicken, hard boiled eggs, and tomatoes. The only problem is that sometimes...
Now this is a salad made for summer - fresh garden green beans, ripe tomatoes, Parmesan, and pancetta. You can substitute bacon for the pancetta, but if pancetta is available, we recommend using it. The flavor works marvelously well with...
Call me unadventurous, but I had never even heard of a watermelon feta salad before versions of it started popping up on food blogs everywhere. Even then, the very thought of it gave me pause. Watermelon, with salty cheese? Yeah...
Some items that you will almost always find well stocked in our pantry are canned beans (white beans, garbanzo, kidney) and canned tuna packed in olive oil. We also keep well supplied with onions, including at least one red onion...
If you've ever grown cherry tomatoes in your garden, you know how wonderfully prolific they can be in summer months. The following salad combines the sweetness of summer cherry tomatoes with white beans and parsley. The secret sauce is the...
This rice salad is a perfect accompaniment to many fall and winter dishes - roast chicken, stews, pork chops. You can use brown rice, wild rice (not really a rice at all), or a combination of the two. Both wild...
Looking for a great summer picnic salad to take to your next potluck? I recently enjoyed this rice salad while visiting my friend Chigiy who was hosting a summer BBQ. "Enjoyed" is the polite way of saying I ate a...
Old fashioned watercress is getting harder to come by, at least around here in Sacramento. Whole Foods carries watercress, but the leaves are too tender, and lack the bite of what I grew up eating. This is my mother's recipe...
Who says you can only make slaw with cabbage? Check out this winter slaw from Hank made with root vegetables. ~Elise Winter is root vegetable time, and while I love roasted roots more than most people, sometimes you just want...
