Art, design, food and creative smarts

In the summer months when produce is all around us. I crave salad – but I’m not necessarily talking leafy greens here.

So how do I make a well-balanced salad from scratch? Very simple.
I always remember the magic combination of sweet, salty and bitter when making a salad dressing.

Start with your food base. Wander around your garden or search through the fridge and select the most ripe produce you can find. For example celery stalks, green pepper, carrots, cucumber, fresh parsley, chives, nuts, olives, tomatoes, watermelon anything you have available. Sometimes the best salads are created using what you already have, the key is to follow the magic combination I mentioned above. Next, evenly chop up or shred whatever you’ve found in the garden or in the crisper drawers of your fridge and place in large bowl. Don’t get fussy here – be rustic. Season the ingredients liberally with salt and pepper – yes, season your salad even if you’re using greens.

Black bean salad

Finally you’ll need to dress the salad. Usually the base of the a good dressing is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. If you add oil and vinegar directly from the bottle to the bowl, start with the vinegar first. If you start with the oil first, it will prevent the vinegar from sticking to the leaves. You can add additional ingredients to the oil and vinegar combination which will enhance the flavor of your salad – I’ve listed some suggestions below. I always finely chop whatever I add to an oil based dressing so as to avoid it becoming a texture in the salad.

Below is a list of possible salad combinations. Feel free to use this as inspiration and be sure to experiment!

Salad base combos:
- Cucumber, watermelon, grapes
- Black beans, corn, cilantro, green and red peppers
- Apples, walnuts, dried cranberries, leafy greens
- Chard greens, red beans, red onion
- Olives, goat cheese, leafy greens, tomatoes
- Celery, carrot, green peppers, quinoa, fresh parsley

Dressing combos:
- Olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard, shallots, Worchestire sauce, salt & pepper
- Olive oil, lime juice, garlic paste, honey
- Canola oil, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard
- Olive oil, Balsamic vinegar,
- Olive oil, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar
- Olive oil, Wasabi paste, ginger paste, rice vinegar, honey