When you hear the word salad, what comes to mind? Leafy greens? Chicken? Potatoes?
I recently had someone tell me that a salad wasn’t “really” a salad unless it had lettuce in it.
From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
salad
noun
sal·ad | ˈsa-ləd
Definition of salad
1. any of various usually cold dishes, such as:
2. a green vegetable or herb grown for salad especially: lettuce
3. a usually incongruous mixture
There are endless types of dishes named salad, for example, spinach salad, Caesar salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, potato salad, pasta salad, and fruit salad. All they really have to be is cold (although there are exceptions to that too like German potato salad, which is usually served warm), combined with other ingredients, and tossed with a dressing of some sort.
Basically, it sounds like you can call lots of things salad. And that is why a dish can be named salad without any type of lettuce in it.
1 lb. fresh strawberries ½ cup mint ½ cup shaved rhubarb stalk 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice or Cointreau ¼ cup walnuts
12 ounces mixed greens 1 small beet 2 carrots ¼ red onion Fresh mint or tarragon 1 cup + 1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar 3 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon sea salt ¼ cup olive oil 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Purchased prepared from a grocery store.
Other great salad recipes (not pictured), compliments of Dr. Kimberly Baker
4 cups boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked, diced 1 ½ cups apples, diced 1 cup grapes, halved 1 cup celery, diced ½ cup pecans, toasted, chopped ¾ – 1 cup mayonnaise ¼ tsp. salt ¼ – ½ tsp. ground black pepper
Yield: 16 servings (1/2 cup)
1 ½ pounds red potatoes, cooked and cubed ½ cup bacon, cooked and crumbled ¼ cup chives, chopped 1
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