Easy Salad Recipes - Cooking at Home - Learn to Cook - Frugal Living

Salads are combinations of fresh vegetables cut into small pieces.  It is very convenient to use a little stainless steel grater here to make little bits from the garlic, unpeeled carrots, unpeeled beets, onions, and unpeeled ginger.  Large leafy vegetables are most easily and conveniently cut up with a large pair of scissors, keep them clean and only for cutting vegetables.  Mix and match the ingredients available will make salads seasonal delicacies. 

Choice salad oils are olive, apricot seed, flax seed, hemp seed and/or grape seed combinations.  This component to a healthy diet should not be disregarded there absence in the body is unforgiving.  In much the same way as oil in a car allows it to operate smoothly, so too you should think of salad oil.  Don’t skimp using these oils on salads and cooked vegetables oils.  These oils loose their effectiveness when heated.

Dressing is made from a combination of two tablespoons of healthy salad oils, a half tablespoon of vinegar, a half teaspoon of sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Apple cider, balsamic, wine, and rice vinegars when used as the solo with salad oils bring excellent flavor to any meal. Put ingredients directly on salad greens in the order given.  This is only a base recipe, by adding herbs and spices on hand, use your taste buds to decipher if the flavor will make this salad perfect.

A Mediterranean salad mix includes every kind of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley and onions.  The dressing is one part balsamic vinegar to four parts salad oils sprinkled with rosemary, oregano, thyme, and/or basil, and salt and sugar to taste. Feta cheese and olives are traditionally used in this combination.

A family favorite is cheeseburger salad.  It is basically all the ingredients of a cheeseburger without the bun.  Using leftover cooked hamburger, cheese, onions, tomatoes, pickles, and lots of lettuce cut into bite size pieces.  The dressing is mayo, mustard, ketchup and relish to taste.

Mayonnaise is easily made if you have an electric blender.  In a very clean blender jar whip one fresh egg add a teaspoon each of sugar, apple cider vinegar and dry mustard powder.  Then blend on a lower setting while pouring one cup of salad oil slowly through the hole in the lid.  Don’t over blend the mayo; once you see the right consistency turn the blender off and stop adding the oil.  Transfer to a sterilized jar and store in the fridge.   Mark the date on the jar and use within a week. Keep mayonnaise in the refrigerator.

Chicken salad is chicken, onions and parsley cut into small bits and mayo mixed with a teaspoon of dry mustard and salt and pepper to taste, served over salad greens.  Fish salad is made exactly the same way, although dill is an excellent addition to this recipe. 

Egg salad is boiled eggs, onions, parsley, carrot and/or celery and pickles cut into small bits and mayo mixed with a teaspoon of dry mustard and salt and pepper to taste served with lettuce on bread as a sandwich. 

To boil eggs will a pot half full with cold water put it on the burner.  Add eggs to fill the pot, put on a tight lid and turn the burner on high.  Once the water is boiling turn it off, leaving the pot on the burner.  After three minutes, carefully drain the hot water from the pot.  Put the pot in the sink on the faucet to pour cold water on them to cool them down.  If the egg isn’t cooled fast enough the yolk edge will darken, this does not however affect its edibility.  Peel an egg by tapping the bottom and top to crack the shell, peel and rinse.  Older eggs are easiest to peel.

A coleslaw salad can include cabbage, carrots, beets, onions and/or garlic grated or chopped up fine.  The creamy dressing is three parts mayo with one part salad oil with salt, celery seed, pepper and sugar to taste.  Process large quantities of the the veggies and freeze them, so it is a fast thaw and serve salad.  Post about freezing vegetables here.

The tangy dressing is three parts salad oil, one part vinegar with salt and sugar to taste.  The tangy dressing works well with bean salad.  Combine cooked and cooled beans, with chopped onion and/or parsley and cucumbers.  Soak mixture in tangy dressing overnight in the fridge.