We’ve fucking had it with all the salad shaming- they’re delicious, versatile and the easiest way to rotate more veggies into your face. Salads don’t get the respect they deserve. But if you came of age in the dark days of food when we were coloring our ketchup and shitting oil, then your fear of salads is understandable. Growing up in the 90s was a struggle when it came to salad options: bagged lettuce drowned in ranch, iceberg with some discount bleu cheese, or some sort of spring mix swimming in balsamic vinaigrette. Even kale salads of the early aughts were barely edible despite how much everyone pretended to like them. Absolutely none of this is salad’s fault though.
Humans have become hard-coded to prefer hot foods which is just another strike against salads. Y’all ever think about that when you’re ordering or cooking? It’s a weird primitive-people habit we’ve developed since humans were spit roasting meals outside caves. A warm meal immediately tells us it’s been cooked, it’s easier to digest, and likely won’t kill us. Plus you’re gonna smell warm food long before raw or cold ingredients. A plate of warm white rice is gonna have more aroma, and thus be more cravable, than a bowl of freshly made gazpacho. Public disdain for salads has even spawned a multi billion dollar industry of fast casual chains, which is expensive and mostly disappointing. Not to mention tone-deaf CEOs alluding to the federal government subsidizing salads and that no mask or vaccine could protect people from an airborne virus- but salads can. That shit ain’t helping. Get absolutely fucked man. 👍 So salads have a lot of strikes against them before we’ve even considered eating one.
We usually toss one on a dinner spread for friends, family, or clients as an afterthought since most nights there’s a big ass salad on our table at home. It's a habit. And every. single. time. someone comes up to us saying that we changed their mind on salads. That they never thought they could taste good, and they went back for seconds. While flattering, this praise was always confusing. Are we really blowing their minds or are they that fucking lost when it comes to lettuce? Do people not know how to make a decent salad? Well after another decade of research the verdict is in: y’all need a salad intervention and we are just the leaf lovers to show you the way. Welcome to our new series: Salad Boot Camp.
Week 1: Lettuce aka The Base
First up, we’re talking about the base of any good, everyday salad: lettuce. Choosing the right lettuce for the job is crucial to reach salad success. The lettuce should make up about 60-70% of your finished salad, so if you pick a leaf that can’t hang with the rest of your ingredients then the whole thing is destined to suck. Think of this like picking the noodles for a pasta dish. The shape, taste, and texture of the pasta lends itself to different styles of sauce. Rigatoni’s larger shape and ridges means it can hold up and hold on to chunkier sauces while a thin pasta like capellini tastes best with silky sauces that don’t weigh down the light noodles. It is the same with lettuce. Crispy romaine can hold up to your heavier dressings like Cesare, while butter lettuce’s soft leaves pair better with a light vinaigrette. Once you start thinking about it, the rest is intuitive. You’re not dumb it’s just nobody teaches this stuff. Light leaf = light dressing. All the same, we gotta cheat sheet at the end of all this.
Now there’s nothing wrong with buying bagged lettuce mixes. Just check the bag carefully for condensation which makes the leaves rot quicker and use bagged greens asap. Fresh heads of lettuce can last 2 weeks in the fridge wrapped in a paper towel and loose plastic bag whereas pre-chopped bags barely make it 4-5 days. Shop wisely and only buy what you plan to use. You don’t get points for letting a salad rot in the crisper drawer. Whatever you grab, know that iceberg lettuce is a no-go unless you’re just looking for crunch. Yeah, it’s the cheapest shit on the shelf, but it has little nutritional bang for the buck. It’s basically just water leaves. And while we love a wedge, it shouldn’t be your go-to salad. Spend an extra 50 cents and grab another crunchy lettuce like romaine, which is absolutely loaded with nutrients like vitamins A, C, K, plus folate and magnesium. When in doubt, buy romaine. Regardless of what you get,you gotta get clean and chop.
Washing your lettuce before you make your salad is crucial for 2 reasons. One, your lettuce is fucking dirty and needs to get cleaned. Secondly, lettuce is a plant so it starts drying out the moment it’s picked, like flowers. Giving the leaves a good bath helps crisp ‘em back up. We like to rinse, chop, then do a thorough wash. Run the heads under cool water or fill up a bowl and give them a dunk, making sure all the grit and gunk sinks to the bottom. Just enough of a wash to keep your cutting board clean while you carve that fucker up.
When it comes to lettuce, the size of the lettuce leaf you bite on really does matter. It affects the mouthfeel of the dish and how the dressing and all the additional toppings taste together. Just like the pasta analogy from earlier. There are basically 3 sizes to think about: big chunks, bite-sized pieces, and ribbons.
Big chunks, whether hand torn big leaves or big chops of romaine work great for creamy dressings, vinaigrettes, and salads with lots of add-ins like croutons, tomatoes, and avocado. These are the prettiest salads and how you’ll usually see them served up in restaurants. While gorgeous, these can often lead to awkward bites and having to use a knife which is ridiculous.
Bite-sized pieces are the way we make most salads. These are the easiest to eat, work with a wide variety of dressings and add-in, and take no extra time. Just tear the big leaves into small pieces or chop the leaves no bigger than the width of a fork. Done.
Ribbons are great for light vinaigrette or for when you are adding lots of small things like nuts and dried fruit. We usually don’t like a salad that is all thin ribbons so we’ll throw this cut in with one of the above ones to add more texture and dimension to our salad.
Now give them a good rinse or swish ‘em around with your hands in a bowl of water to get the rest of the dirt out and crisp up the leaves. But don’t just throw that back in the bowl. Not drying your lettuce off before you make a salad is a weirdly common mistake that fucks up the whole bowl.
If you leave your lettuce too wet, the dressing gets water down so the whole thing sucks. We don’t believe in buying tons of kitchen gadgets, but if you’re gonna be serious about salads, you’ll want a salad spinner. They’re affordable, last forever, and double as lettuce storage devices. The centrifugal force of the spinner shoots all the water off the leaves, out the grated sides of the cage in the center, and it pools in the bottom of the spinner where you can pour it out. You want to spin until there’s hardly any water to pour out from the container. Then store whatever lettuce you don’t use in there. The cage allows for lots of airflow guaranteeing your lettuce will stay fresher longer than if they were sitting in a pool of water stuffed in a plastic bag. Ours basically lives in the fridge.
No spinner? Do like our grandmas did and grab a clean pillowcase. Fill the pillowcase with your washed, chopped lettuce and tie the end closed or hold it closed with your hand. Now Petey Pablo that mf by spinning the pillowcase around with your arm or over your head. Centrifugal force will push the water off the lettuce leaves where it will get absorbed by the pillowcase. Keep spinning until they feel dry. Easy. Take out your dried lettuce and you’re good to go.
Here’s a quick guide to the most common lettuce choices and how they’re best eaten:
Radicchio, Kale, Endive, Chicories- firm, slightly bitter leaves- best sprinkled in with other kinds of greens, toss with any style dressing, best in bite-sized pieces and ribbons.
Iceberg- crisp, water dense leaves with little flavor and zero nutritional value- best served in wedges and large chunks with a creamy dressing, or finely cut in a slaw style for a burger.
Romaine, Romaine Hearts, Gem Lettuces- crisp leaves ranging from bitter to slightly sweet, great with creamy dressings to light vinaigrettes, best torn into large and bite-sized leaves, works well as a ribbon. The most versatile lettuce in the game.
Coral Lettuce, Green and Red leaf, Butter Heads- sweet, relatively soft leaves with a little crunch, best with light dressing from creamy to a vinaigrette, easy to overdress, best in bite-sized pieces and ribbons.
Arugula, Spring Mixes, Young Lettuce, Mesclun Mixes, Spinach- super soft leaves prone to wilting, best with very lightly dressing or tossed together with more hearty lettuce like romaine, use only with vinaigrettes and other light dressings to kept them from getting too mushy
Now that you’ve got your lettuce ready to go, next week we’re gonna go over all the best add-ins and toppings for your salad to make it cravable as hell. Lots of recipes, tricks, and tips coming up that we can’t wait to share with y’all.
Michelle and Matt
Lettuce storage tip: big ziploc bag with tiny breathing holes poked with a sewing pin. Just wash, spin, and put it in the bag.
As a lazy, salad-in-a-bag buyer, I’m so grateful for this article! I even already have a salad spinner buried deep in a cabinet somewhere. Now I’ll scour your books for yummy dressing recipes!