Salad Recipes

The wonderful thing about salad recipes is that they are as easy or complex as you wish to make them. A visitor from another planet would find the entire concept of salad confusing. Just when he thought he had pinned the definition down, another meaning for salad would appear to further obscure the issue.

What is a Salad?

The term is most often used to describe a bowl of greens (lettuce, spinach, dandelion, endive), topped with a liquid or creamy flavoring sauce called dressing along with other vegetables such as tomato, green pepper, onions, radishes, and sprouts.

This dish can be served as a first course of a large meal, as a light repast between meals, or can be turned into an entire meal with addition of cheeses, boiled eggs, and (for omnivores) cold meats.

But Wait!

A salad recipe can also be based on something other than greens, even starches like potatoes or macaroni in a mayonnaise base. Potato and macaroni salads are more often side dishes rather than first courses and accompany informal meals, lunches, and picnics. They are especially popular in the summertime, when cold foods are preferred.

And what about fruit salad? This mix of diced or sliced fruit can be a side dish, a dessert, or an appetizer.

Meat in my Salad Recipes?

Sure, why not. Chicken salad, tuna salad, shrimp or crab salad - these are diced meats turned into a spreadable paste with mayonnaise, sour cream, or other creamy ingredient. These meat salads can be eaten alone or spread on bread, toast, croissants, or pitas for a sandwich. Or they can be stuffed inside a tomato shell or a cucumber boat or even put atop a traditional green salad. In which case, would you say it becomes, for instance, chicken salad salad?

In any event, salad recipes are a wonderful way to get one's allotment of vegetables and an excellent meal on a hot day. .