Salads and easy salad recipes are the taste of summer ( well that and triple decker ice cream’s). The crisp texture and bright clean flavour’s of fresh, well prepared salads are an essential part of any summer meal.
I have alway’s felt they are the Cinderella of the kitchen.
They encompass as wide a range of ingredients, techniques and flavor’s as any other section of the kitchen but are often relegated to the status of a mere accompaniment to the main dish or an easy starter when you can’t be bothered doing anything too complicated.
In many hot countries they are elevated to the status they deserve. North Africa, for example has wonderful easy salad recipes, such as spicey cous cous recipes, the Mediterranean of course has the classic Greek starter, while closer to home we have wonderful varieties from classic potato recipes to cranberry recipes, from apple waldorf recipes to simple chicken recipes, from tossed green leaf dishes to broccoli recipes (for the fad diet conscious among us).
Easy salad recipes howver do not have to be boring! However uninteresting sounding the broccoli salad may sound it can be made tasty if not texturally interesting by simply researching a few good easy salad dressing recipes.
Make the taste don’t buy it!
Once you begin to make sauces dressings and accompaniments as opposed to buying them your easy salad recipes will become a sublime experience not to be missed.
After all what is the point of buying wonderful fresh produce carefully slicing grating and preparing it only to cover it in a bottled dressing comprising mainly of half a cup of rancid hydrogenated fat salt sugar and more chemicals than you than you could reasonably expect to acquire on a three week research trip to Chernobyl.
It takes only five minutes to chuck a clove of garlic, a little balsamic vinegar, a splash of olive oil a pinch of rock salt, a twist of black pepper and half a spoon of Dijon mustard into a bowl, food processor or whatever you use and bingo great tasting salads.
Make a slightly larger amount and you can save whatever is leftover for the great instant food for the next week or two by putting it in an old screw top jar in the fridge.
It’s also easy to vary this simple recipe the addition of pretty much anything you like such as blue cheese, fresh herbs(oregano, basil, tarragon, dill or whatever you prefer) roasted chopped bell peppers, chillies, anchovies or diced red onions.
The bonus of all this, aside from the great taste, is that salad is one food that is actually very good for you. So there it is taste, texture and something that is good for you, what more could you want(bearing in mind that if I knew how to win the lottery I wouldn’t be writing this,(too bouncy on a yacht to type) so sharpen your knives off to the grocery store and start crunching!
Spicy North African cous cous salad recipe
Classic potato salad recipe with a twist
Caprese tomato and mozzarella