Summer is salad time. It's so easy to put a salad together, as part of the meal or even the meal itself.
Remember presentation counts, keep the salad simple and add a splash of color. Use fresh ingredients, whenever possible.
Salad Vegetables
Lettuce
Inspect your lettuce before buying, make sure the leaves look healthy not limp. Always wash the lettuce before use. Invest in a good lettuce spinner. To keep lettuce longer wash, spin, and store wrapped in paper towel and packed in a zip lock plastic bag.
Romaine - a crisp sturdy lettuce, great for robust salads, sandwiches and wraps.
Ice Berg or Head or Crisp head lettuce - The two terms are interchangeable. This is a crisp lettuce, perfect for a sturdy salad or just right in a sandwich or with salsa or in a taco.
Boston or Butter head: delicate leaves that need little or no dressing except maybe a squirt of lemon. Be gentle washing it.
Leaf lettuce: Anywhere from green to bright red. This is a good basis for a salad. I especially like the red leaf lettuce, good color. I like to use this lettuce as a base for a salad.
Other greens:
They can add great flavor, color and texture to a salad.
A salad shouldn't just be lettuce, add a bit of color and texture with other vegetable.
A great investment is a mezzuluna knife. Just perfect for chopping and mincing vegetables but a simple paring knife is also good.
Cucumber- Usually two kinds are sold in most grocery stores- field and long English. Long English is best for most salads you don't need to peel it but you should wash it before use. Field cucumbers are wonderful in Greek salads or salads that don't have lettuce.
Tomatoes - Cherry, grape, and Roma are great for most salads. For a Greek salad try a beefeater. If you're going to make the salad ahead of time, add the tomatoes last.
Onions- I like red especially for Greek salads. Red onions add color and spice to almost any salad. A simple trick if you don't like the sharp taste is to chop the onion, bath it in fresh lime juice and put it in the refrigerator overnight or for at least four hours. White Spanish onions are wonderful sliced thin
Peppers- My favorite pepper is orange. Red is probably best for Mexican or Greek salads. You may if you like peel the pepper first, totally optional. I like the peppers sliced thin.
Carrots - There's the baby carrots that come in spring and early summer and the bigger kind that a wonderful all summer long. To fancy it up a bit try peeling the entire carrot so you get long orange strips. You can curl up the strips.
Spring onions - I just take the scissors and start cutting.-CarbsFor those long hot summer days, you just don't feel like cooking add a bit of carbs and make the salad into a one course meal.
Pasta- Always boil pasta in a big pot, I put a bit of olive oil in it. Cook until tender but not mushy. Pour cold water over the pasta to use for a salad.
Couscous- Really don't want to cook? You don't have to cook couscous just pour hot water over it, just enough to cover it and it will cook in minutes.
Chick peas- Open a can and add to give any salad more interest.
Corn - either fresh off the cob or canned, corn adds color and texture to any salad especially great with a crisp lettuce.Here's my potato salad recipe.
Nuts and Sunflower seedsNuts add protein. They're a real boon for any vegetarians in your life or if you just don't feel like meat today. I especially like nuts with spinach. Make sure the nuts are well chopped - here's ones I use: cashews, pistachio and walnuts.Sprinkle sunflowers on top of a completed salad.
MeatIf you have left over chicken or ham (never more than a day old and always from the refrigerator), use them in a salad. Please read, Summer food safety Salmon which is wonderful with a bit of Mayo, finely chopped celery and gherkins.
Olives and PicklesPerk up a salad especially a potato salad with, olives green, black or purple. I love black olives especially in a Greek salad. Dill pickles and gherkins are great in a potato or a pasta salad.
Cheese
Feta is a wonderful salad cheese especially in a Greek salad with cucumbers, red bell pepper, chopped beefsteak or roma tomatoes, red onions and black olives. But there's no reason why you can't sprinkle on feta over any salad just to give it a bit of zest.
Cheddar is especially good on crisp lettuce.
Parmesan is lovely with any kind of Mediterranean salad.
Mozzarella cut it up in cubes and sprinkle them over leaf lettuce.Create your own summer salad sensation.
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