A salad is a
dish consisting of mixed, mostly natural ingredients with at least one raw ingredient. They are typically served at room temperature or chilled, though some can be served warm. Condiments and
salad dressings
A salad dressing is a sauce for salads. Used on virtually all '' leafy salads'', dressings may also be used in making salads of beans (such as three bean salad), noodle or pasta salads and antipasti, and forms of potato salad.
Salad dressings ...
, which exist in a variety of flavors, are often used to enhance a salad.
Garden salads use a base of
leafy greens such as
lettuce,
arugula/rocket,
kale or
spinach; they are common enough that the word ''salad'' alone often refers specifically to garden salads. Other types include
bean salad
Bean salad is a common cold salad composed of various cooked beans – typically green, wax, kidney, and/or lima beans - tossed in a sweet-sour vinaigrette. Variant ingredients include fresh raw onions, bell pepper, and/or other cooked or ...
,
tuna salad, bread salad (e.g.
fattoush
Fattoush ( ar, فتوش; also fattush, fatush, fattoosh, and fattouche) is a Levantine salad made from toasted or fried pieces of khubz (Arabic flat bread) combined with mixed greens and other vegetables, such as radishes and tomatoes.Wright, ...
,
panzanella
Panzanella or panmolle is a Tuscan and Umbrian chopped salad of soaked stale bread, onions and tomatoes that is popular in the summer. It often includes cucumbers, sometimes basil and is dressed with olive oil and vinegar.
It is also popu ...
), vegetable salads without leafy greens (e.g.
Greek salad,
potato salad
Potato salad is a salad dish made from boiled potatoes, usually containing a dressing and a variety of other ingredients such as boiled eggs and raw vegetables.
In the United States, it is generally considered a side dish and usually accompanie ...
,
coleslaw),
sōmen salad
, ''somyeon'' ( ko, 소면; 素麵), or ''sùmiàn'' () is a very thin noodle made of wheat flour, less than 1.3 mm in diameter. The noodles are used extensively in East Asian cuisines. Japanese ''sōmen'' is made by stretching the dough ...
(a noodle-based salad),
fruit salad, and desserts like
jello salad
Jell-O is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert (fruit-flavored gels/jellies), pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert ( genericized as jello) is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is a ...
.
Salads may be served at any point during a meal:
*
Appetizer salads — light, smaller-portion salads served as the first course of the meal
*
Side
Side or Sides may refer to:
Geometry
* Edge (geometry) of a polygon (two-dimensional shape)
* Face (geometry) of a polyhedron (three-dimensional shape)
Places
* Side (Ainis), a town of Ainis, ancient Thessaly, Greece
* Side (Caria), a town of a ...
salads — to accompany the main course as a side dish; examples include
potato salad
Potato salad is a salad dish made from boiled potatoes, usually containing a dressing and a variety of other ingredients such as boiled eggs and raw vegetables.
In the United States, it is generally considered a side dish and usually accompanie ...
and
coleslaw
*
Main course salads — usually containing a portion of one or more
high-protein foods, such as
meat,
fish
Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...
,
eggs,
legumes, or
cheese
*
Dessert salads — sweet salads containing
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...
,
gelatin, sweeteners or
whipped cream
When a sauce is used to flavor a salad, it is generally called a
salad dressing
A salad dressing is a sauce for salads. Used on virtually all '' leafy salads'', dressings may also be used in making salads of beans (such as three bean salad), noodle or pasta salads and antipasti, and forms of potato salad.
Salad dressin ...
; most salad dressings are based on either
a mixture of oil and vinegar or a creamy dairy base.
Etymology
The word "salad" comes to English from the
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
''salade'' of the same meaning, itself an abbreviated form of the earlier
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
''herba salata'' (salted herb), from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
''salata'' (salted), from ''sal'' (salt). In English, the word first appears as "salad" or "sallet" in the 14th century. Salt is associated with salad because vegetables were seasoned with
brine (a solution of salt in water) or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
times.
The phrase "
salad days", meaning a "time of youthful inexperience" (based on the notion of "green"), is first recorded by Shakespeare in 1606,
while the use of
salad bar
A salad bar is a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates. Most salad bars provide lettuce, chopped tomatoes, assorted raw, sliced vegeta ...
, referring to a
buffet-style serving of salad ingredients, first appeared in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
in 1937.
History
The
Romans,
ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
,
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...
and
Indians ate mixed greens with dressing, a type of mixed salad. Salads, including layered and dressed salads, have been popular in Europe since the Greek and Roman imperial expansions. In his 1699 book, ''Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets'',
John Evelyn
John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.
John Evelyn's diary, or m ...
attempted with little success to encourage his fellow Britons to eat fresh salad greens.
Mary, Queen of Scots, ate boiled
celery root over greens covered with creamy mustard dressing,
truffles,
chervil, and slices of
hard-boiled eggs.
Oil used on salads can be found in the 17th-century colony of
New Netherland
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...
(later called New York, New Jersey and Delaware). A list of common items arriving on ships and their designated prices when appraising cargo included "a can of salad oil at 1.10 florins" and "an anker of wine vinegar at 16 florins". In a 1665 letter to the Director of New Netherland from
the Island of Curaçao there is a request to send greens: "I request most amicably that your honors be pleased to send me seed of every sort, such as cabbage, carrots, lettuce, parsley, etc. for none can be acquired here and I know that your honor has plenty,...".
Salads may be sold in
supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...
s, at
restaurants and at
fast food chains. In the United States, restaurants will often have a
salad bar
A salad bar is a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates. Most salad bars provide lettuce, chopped tomatoes, assorted raw, sliced vegeta ...
with salad-making ingredients, which the customers will use to put together their salad. Salad restaurants were earning more than $300 million in 2014. At-home salad consumption in the 2010s was rising but moving away from fresh-chopped lettuce and toward bagged greens and salad kits, with bag sales expected to reach $7 billion per year.
Types
A salad can be a composed salad (with the ingredients specifically arranged on the serving dish) or a tossed salad (with the ingredients placed in a bowl and mixed, often with salad dressing). An
antipasto plate, the first dish of a formal
Italian meal, is similar to a composed salad, and has vegetables, cheese, and meat.
Green salad
A green salad, or green leaf salad, another name for garden salad, is most often composed of
leafy vegetables such as
lettuce varieties,
spinach, or
rocket (arugula). If non-greens make up a large portion of the salad it may instead be called a vegetable salad. Common raw vegetables (in the
culinary sense) used in a salad include
cucumbers,
peppers,
tomato
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
es,
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...
s,
carrots,
celery
Celery (''Apium graveolens'') is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, ...
,
radishes,
mushrooms,
avocado
The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family ( Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for ...
,
olives,
artichoke
The globe artichoke (''Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green articho ...
hearts,
heart of palm,
watercress,
parsley,
garden beet
The beetroot is the taproot portion of a beet plant, usually known in North America as beets while the vegetable is referred to as beetroot in British English, and also known as the table beet, garden beet, red beet, dinner beet or golden beet ...
s, and
green beans. Nuts, berries, seeds, lentils, and flowers are less common components.
Hard-boiled eggs,
bacon,
shrimp, and
cheeses may be used as garnishes, but large amounts of animal-based foods would be more likely in a
dinner salad.
Wedge salad
A wedge salad is a green salad made from a head of lettuce (often
iceberg), halved or quartered, with other ingredients on top.
Bound salads
Bound salads are assembled with thick sauces such as
mayonnaise. One portion of a bound salad will hold its shape when placed on a plate with a scoop. Examples of bound salad include
tuna salad,
chicken salad
Chicken salad is any salad with chicken as a main ingredient. Other common ingredients may include mayonnaise, hard-boiled egg, celery, onion, pepper, pickles (or pickle relish) and a variety of mustards.
Description
In Canada and the Uni ...
,
egg salad,
coleslaw, and
potato salad
Potato salad is a salad dish made from boiled potatoes, usually containing a dressing and a variety of other ingredients such as boiled eggs and raw vegetables.
In the United States, it is generally considered a side dish and usually accompanie ...
. Some bound salads are used as
sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
fillings. Some
pasta salads, e.g.
macaroni salad, are bound salads. They are popular at picnics and barbecues.
Dinner salads
Main course salads (known as dinner salads
[Melissa Barlow, Stephanie Ashcraft. ''Things to Do with a Salad: One Hundred One Things to Do With a Salad''. Gibbs Smith, 2006. . 128 pages]
page 7
or as entrée salads in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
) may contain small pieces of poultry, seafood, or
steak.
Caesar salad
A Caesar salad (also spelled Cesar and Cesare) is a green salad of romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with lemon juice (or lime juice), olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies, garlic, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese, and black ...
,
chef salad,
Cobb salad,
Chinese chicken salad
Chinese chicken salad is a salad including chopped chicken and Chinese culinary ingredients that is common in parts of the United States. Though many variations exist, common features of Chinese chicken salads include lettuce, cabbage, chicken ...
,
Michigan salad, and
Pittsburgh salad are dinner salads.
A wide variety of cheeses are used in dinner salads, including
Roquefort blue cheese (traditional for a Cobb salad), and
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
*Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
*Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
*Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
* Swiss Internation ...
, Cheddar, Jack, and Provolone (for chef and Cobb salads).
Fruit salads
Fruit salads are made of fruit (in the
culinary sense), which may be fresh or canned. Examples include
fruit cocktail
Fruit salad is a dish consisting of various kinds of fruit, sometimes served in a liquid, either their juices or a syrup. In different forms, fruit salad can be served as an appetizer or a side salad. When served as an appetizer, a fruit sala ...
.
Dessert salads
Dessert salads rarely include leafy greens and are often sweet. Common variants are made with
gelatin or
whipped cream; e.g.
jello salad
Jell-O is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert (fruit-flavored gels/jellies), pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert ( genericized as jello) is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is a ...
,
pistachio salad, and
ambrosia. Other forms of dessert salads include regional dishes such as Midwestern America's ambrosia-like
glorified rice
Glorified rice is a dessert salad popular in the Midwestern cuisine served in Minnesota and other states in the Upper Midwest, United States and other places with Norwegian populations. It is popular in more rural areas with sizable Lutheran p ...
and
cookie salad
Cookie salad is a dessert salad from the U.S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota made with buttermilk, vanilla pudding, whipped cream, mandarin oranges, and fudge stripe shortbread cookies. Dessert salads, like glorified rice and cookie sala ...
, which contains crumbled cookies as an ingredient.
See also
*
Antipasto
*
List of salads
Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes including: green salads; vegetable salads; long beans; salads of pasta, legumes, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They often include vegetables and fruits ...
*
Salad spinner
A salad spinner, also known as a salad tosser, is a kitchen tool used to wash and remove excess water from salad greens. It uses centrifugal force to separate the water from the leaves, enabling salad dressing to stick to the leaves without dil ...
References
Further reading
*
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