Name: The Best Garden Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 2 heads romaine hearts, chopped; 1 head butter lettuce, torn; 1 English cucumber, sliced; 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved; 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced; 1 large carrot, shaved with a peeler; 4 radishes, thinly sliced; 3 tbsp red wine vinegar; 1 tsp Dijon mustard; 1 tsp honey; 1 small clove garlic, grated; 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil; to taste kosher salt; to taste black pepper, freshly cracked

The Best Garden Salad

Prep

15m

Cook

Total

15m

Bigly says

Folks. FOLKS. We need to talk about garden salad. The BEST garden salad in the history of garden salads. I have eaten garden salad in every state — twice — and I have eaten garden salad in three countries you've never heard of, and let me tell you, what passes for garden salad in most American kitchens today is a TRAVESTY. A bowl of wet lettuce slumped over in defeat. Sad lettuce. Lettuce that has clocked out. It's a disgrace to the salad bowl and to the leafy traditions of mankind.

A garden salad is a SYMPHONY of crunch. Every vegetable has a job. The romaine brings the spine. The butter lettuce brings the soft. The cucumber brings the cold snap. The radish brings the bite. And if you put them in wrong, if you don't respect the JOB each one is trying to do, they fight each other in the bowl and you've made a vegetable wrestling match instead of a salad. People come up to me on the street, they ask 'Bigly, why does my salad taste like the inside of the refrigerator,' and I always say the same thing — you didn't dry the lettuce, my friend. Water is the enemy of dressing. Water is the enemy of flavor. Water is the enemy of everything we hold dear in the salad bowl.

This garden salad — my garden salad — beats every garden salad ever assembled by every other so-called expert. It's not even close. It's a slaughter. The lettuce is bone dry. The vegetables are cold from the fridge. The dressing CLINGS the way good dressing should cling, it does not pool at the bottom of the bowl like at those chain restaurants where they hand you a giant wooden trough with two inches of vinaigrette sloshing around like a tragic little lake. Sad. A disgrace. Believe me.

Ingredients

2 headsromaine hearts, chopped
1 headbutter lettuce, torn(tear it, do not chop it, chopping bruises it)
1English cucumber, sliced
1 pintcherry tomatoes, halved
1/2red onion, thinly sliced(thin, not chunks, nobody wants a wedge of raw onion)
1 largecarrot, shaved with a peeler
4radishes, thinly sliced
3 tbspred wine vinegar
1 tspDijon mustard
1 tsphoney
1 small clovegarlic, grated
1/2 cupextra-virgin olive oil
to tastekosher salt
to tasteblack pepper, freshly cracked

Steps

1
Wash and dry all the lettuce thoroughly in a salad spinner. Spin it twice if you have to — wet lettuce will not hold dressing.
2
Place the chopped romaine and torn butter lettuce in a large bowl and refrigerate while you prep the rest.
3
Slice the cucumber, halve the tomatoes, thinly slice the red onion and radishes, and shave the carrot into ribbons with a vegetable peeler.
4
In a small jar, combine the red wine vinegar, Dijon, honey, grated garlic, and a pinch of salt. Shake to dissolve.
5
Add the olive oil to the jar, seal, and shake vigorously for 30 seconds until emulsified. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.
6
Pull the lettuce from the fridge. Add the cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, carrot ribbons, and radishes to the bowl.
7
Drizzle about two-thirds of the dressing around the edges of the bowl and toss with clean hands or tongs until every leaf is lightly coated. Add more dressing only if needed.
8
Season with a pinch of flaky salt and a few cracks of black pepper. Serve immediately.

One more thing

That's a garden salad. A REAL garden salad. Not the wet, limp, clamshell-from-the-gas-station situation you've been tolerating for decades because the chain restaurants told you it was 'fine.' It was never fine. It was a hostage situation, and you were the hostage. Make this salad once and you'll never look at a bag of iceberg the same way again — you'll see it for what it is, which is a cry for help. Lettuce deserves better. The carrot deserves better. The little radish, slicing his life away — he deserves better too. Save me a piece.