Go Fork Yourself

Week 2 of Salad Boot Camp

look at that cohesive fucking dish

Alright lettuce heads, welcome to week 2 of our Salad Boot Camp. When all this is over, you’ll be able to intuitively make an applause-worthy salad without ever glancing at a recipe. We’ve designed the categories we’re unveiling each week to illustrate the building blocks of a superior salad so you can just check off boxes in your head as you literally throw dinner together. With our boot camp and a lil practice, you’ll be able to just write “salad stuff” on your grocery list and judge when you get there what would make the best salads based on sales and what’s in season. No more food ruts or lack of a veggie rotation in your diet. After we’re done with you? EVERY SINGLE SALAD you make will be a certified banger and totally unique.

all greens, no flavor is a major salad sin

Last week, we walked you through how to pick, chop, and clean the most legit lettuce for your salad. This week, we’re moving up from the base to all the things added to a salad to give it some identity and motherfuckin flavor. A just-lettuce salad is some bottom barrel desperation that should only be done right before your paycheck clears or when the fridge is naked. Otherwise, you wanna load that shit up with all the fixins to make it a meal into itself. What you add to your lettuce will determine all kinds of things on your road to salad satiation: nutrient density, taste, texture, aesthetic appeal, how full you feel, and for how long. To make this more manageable we’ve broken this idea down into 2 categories: the add-ins and the toppers.

The Add-Ins: These are all the additional ingredients you incorporate to the body of the salad and should account for like 25% of the whole dish. Here is where you add chopped up vegetables and fruits like carrots, cucumbers, bell peppers, beets, tomatoes, broccoli, apples, whatever the fuck you like. Think about what’s in season and try to lean into those choices because that will often be what’s tastiest because it's ripe and cheapest because it didn’t take a plane ride to get to your market. Fuck it, add leftover roasted veggie or potatoes while you’re at it. Leftover cooked grains and beans are great here too. All these lil extras bring a fistful of vitamins and minerals to your dish while adding even more heart-healthy, belly-filling fiber.

When chopping up your add-ins, you need to think about how they’ll mix with your lettuce and how easy or hard they’ll be to gather up with a fork. You don’t want big ass chunks that require a knife or cuts so small that it all just sits at the bottom of the bowl. That means no whole cherry tomatoes, no giant apple slices. Restaurants get away with this shit but now you know better. The smaller the leaves of your salad, the smaller the chop can be so you can get a lil bit of most ingredients with each bite. 

Better yet, have a variety of sizes in your bowl so you can chop all the stuff into bite-sized pieces and your add-ins will blend so nicely into your salad that you’ll have a cohesive dish like at the top of the newsletter.   

Now y’all know us well enough we wouldn’t just recommend some bullshit without showing our work. Here are some common add-ins and easiest ways to chop em up. Whole cherry or grape tomatoes in a salad are an act of aggression that will not be tolerated. It’s lazy, rude, and ultimately disrespectful towards those delicious little fruits. Cut them in half or into slices to make them easier to eat. Any seeds etc. that sploodge out (technical term) on the cutting board should be left behind. They add no flavor and will just water down the final product. 

Giant, thick cut rounds of cucumber are also fucking rude. If you want whole rounds of cucumber, cut them thinly. The smaller you break down the cucumber, the thicker the cut can be. This makes them easier to eat and lets their lovely crunch shine through and add texture to the whole dish without disrupting the flavor. And lastly, raw carrots or any other fibrous veggie should NEVER be added in a salad in big chunks. Have you ever tried to stab one of those hearty motherfuckers with a fork and then gracefully chew it as part of your salad around other people? Might as well just walk into traffic. We prefer to grate carrots if they are going to be part of a slaw-style salad or, most often, just shave large or short ribbons off with our veggie peeler- see above. They look elegant, fold nicely into the leaves, and make the most of the taste and texture of the carrot. Plus, it’s fucking easy.

Once you are done chopping all your add-ins, you can lightly season them right on your cutting board. Just sprinkle a little salt right on top, maybe a squeeze of lemon, or a dash of garlic powder. That gives them the extra oomph they need to blend into your salad. Treat them with some fucking respect and season them like you would when making any other kind of meal. When you’re all done, scoop them into the bowl already filled with your cleaned and chopped lettuce and let’s get moving to our second to last piece of the salad pie.

The Toppers: These are the kind of things that usually draw you to a particular salad in the first place like croutons, wonton chips, or dried cranberries. These are one of the smallest percentages of your salad but bring a huge amount of the flavor. You aren’t trying to be be overly virtuous here, just add what makes you fucking happy to eat. Try some tasty salad toppers like toasted nuts, olives, our red lentil baconish bits, chopped fresh herbs like dill, sprouts, raw onions or our easy AF pickled onions, or a handful of croutons. All of these should be at least bite-sized or smaller so you can get some on your fork in at least every other bite. This 4 percent of your salad is like the bow on your nutritionally dense plant nachos. We like to dress and toss our salads full of all the add-ins, and then add the toppers and toss gently one more time. That way they stay kinda prominent and don’t get soggy if they are meant to be crispy. If you’re dishing up the salads, save some toppers on the side to sprinkle over the top of each serving so that shit looks extra tasty. It’s ok to throw a couple bigger pieces on top for when plating for *vibe* reasons.

Below are two recipes for some of our favorite, all weather salad toppers. The crouton recipe first appeared in our original book Eat Like You Give a Fuck but has been lightly adapted. The second is a Broiler Room exclusive just for you guys, our Salad Seed Brittle. This stovetop sweetness comes together in less than 10 minutes, is easily customized, and fucking delicious. Both need to be stored in airtight containers on the counter and make enough for several salads.

Homemade Croutons

½ a loaf of day-old bread (sourdough is our fav)

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder

½ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon salt

Warm the oven up to 400 degrees. Tear the bread into bite sized pieces. This will give you nice, irregular bites that won’t tear apart the roof of your mouth in the final salad. Trust us. You should get around 5 cups. In a big bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Add in the bread pieces and mix that fucker up to make sure all the pieces get some love. Pour that out evenly onto a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, stirring it halfway through to make sure that shit isn’t burning, until the pieces look nice and golden brown.

Serve right away or keep them in an airtight container for up to 10 days.

Salad Seed Brittle

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ cup sunflower seeds*

¼ sesame seeds (we used white and black)*

¼ cup maple syrup

Pinch of salt

In a large fry pan or braiser, warm up the oil over a medium heat. Line a dinner plate with parchment paper and keep it nearby. Add the seeds to the oil and stir them around until they start looking a little golden brown and the kitchen smells a little toasty. Pour in the maple syrup and cook that shit until most of the liquid evaporates and the seeds start clumping together, about 3-4 minutes. Stir continuously and don’t walk away because these seeds will burn in no time. Once they look good, turn off the heat and scrap them onto the prepared parchment in a somewhat even layer to cool. Sprinkle over a little salt and let them cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Serve on top of your favorite salad, wrap, or avocado toast. Store them in an airtight container on the counter for up to 10 days.

*Feel free to sub in what you’ve got. Basically, you want ¾ cup of small chops of nuts or seeds. This recipe works great with pumpkin seeds, pecans, you name it. Just chop the big fuckers down to at least a sunflower seed size. If you want to add an herb or spice, 1 teaspoon chopped fresh herb or ½ teaspoon dried and ground spice is the way to go. Just stir it into the maple syrup before you add it to the pan. 

And for our last tip of the week, we want to share two books we’ve loved for years that spark all kinds of culinary creativity. But it’s great for the least creative among us too. Are you the kind of person who doesn’t have a clue what goes together and you’ll add pickles and peach slices to a Caesar salad? Does the idea of cooking without a recipe scare the shit out of you? Meet The Flavor Bible and The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. Both list ingredients alphabetically, tell you when those ingredients are in season, how to store them, great ways to cook them, and list below all the other ingredients that they pair well with. They’re INCREDIBLE resources for any cook at any level. Not sure what you want as add-ins for your next salad? Look there. Have a shitton of blueberries and are tired of muffins? Look in there. This is not an ad in any way. We’ve had our copies for over a decade and we’re huge fans. We think y’all might like them too.

Next week we’re moving on to everyone’s favorite part of eating salads and the only condiment we believe you should always, always, always make from scratch: dressing. It’s gonna be full of recipes and, most importantly, will show you how to make your dressing in the salad bowl with your salad already in there. You’re gonna fucking love it.

Thanks again for all your love and support. This week marks 10 years since our silly lil recipes went viral and we can’t believe we’re lucky enough to still be doing this. It’s only possible from the support of wonderful, extremely attractive people like yourself. Your support means the world to us.

Michelle and Matt