Salads Don’t Have to Be Green

I used to insist on making a green salad to go with every meal. It is the way I grew up eating – in fact the first thing I learned to make in the kitchen was a vinaigrette, and my first kitchen tasks were preparing all of the lettuces and vegetables for our mixed green salads.

Now my salads are not always green. This is especially true in winter, when root vegetables, roasted vegetables, grains and year-round vegetable staples like celery are often at the center of my salad plate.

For inspiration for this week’s salads, I looked at the Union Square Greenmarket website as well as some websites from farms, to see what fruits and vegetables may be arriving in your CSA baskets.

Getting tired of doing the same old things with turnips and winter squash? I roasted these vegetables and used them in salads, which I had never thought about doing before. The squash went into a grain salad that I made once with kasha left over from last week’s recipe tests, and another time with freekeh.

I used some pomegranate molasses in the sweet/tart dressing and added pomegranate seeds to the salad, and I would have been happy to eat it every day for lunch if I hadn’t had other delicious recipe tests on hand, like the baby greens salad with balsamic-roasted turnips.

The turnips also had a sweet/tart flavor as I tossed them with balsamic vinegar, a little sugar and olive oil before I roasted them.

Some of this week’s salads focused on supermarket staples, like celery and carrots, radishes and oranges. One of my favorites is an orange and radish salad with pistachios..

I loved the crunch and heat of the radishes against the juicy/sweet oranges, and I was surprised by the staying power this salad had. 

It still tasted great after a couple of days in the refrigerator, even though the pistachios were a bit soggy.

So did the slaw I made with carrots, celeriac and celery, a dish that transports me to a Baltimore, Paris or Washington D.C. café every time I take a bite.