About the recipes

Most are more or less tossed green salads. But plenty of other types of salads work their way into the mix. This is a year’s worth of seasonal salads. Most are designed to be a side dish or vegetable/salad course. Some are main dishes. There is very little meat in any of them, and it’s almost always optional. And with few exceptions, even the grain and pasta salads have tons of vegetables in them because that’s how I like them.

These are all salads I want to eat. That means there are no strawberries (sorry, I know it’s weird, but they just aren’t my thing). There is often garlic. Things tend to get a bit spicy now and again. Most contain olive oil—partly because I like it and partly because I always have it on hand.

I will not tell you to wash things. Most produce needs to be rinsed and dried before using them, but lots of salad greens are pre-washed and whether you rinse them again is your choice. Lots of herbs and greens, however, get pretty darn gritty—especially if it's rained recently—so those may require several rounds of rinsing. Check your produce and act accordingly.

I generally like to write recipes with the ingredients listed in the order I’ll use them; that can read a bit odd for salad because I usually make the dressing first. So I’ll list the salad part first and the dressing part second, but may then tell you to make the dressing first in the salad bowl in which you plan to serve the salad. Fewer dishes! More time for the flavors in the dressing to blend!

I often let the garlic or shallot or whatever sit in the vinegar for a bit; this brings out yet mellows the flavor and distributes it through a dressing a bit more reliably. It is never a crucial step.

They’re salads; they’re flexible. If you like something, go ahead and add more; if you don’t like something, try leaving it out. Most nuts can stand in for other nuts. Lots of root vegetables can play the role of other root vegetables. You get my drift. Basically, take everything I say with a grain of salt and make these salads your own—and when you do, tell us about it!