Salad

A salad is a dish made from mixed ingredients, often vegetables. Salads are usually served cold or at room temperature. They are often dressed with special sauces called salad dressings, which come in many flavors.

Garden salads are very common and use raw leafy greens like lettuce, arugula, kale, or spinach. When people say "salad" without any other words, they often mean a garden salad. But there are many other kinds of salads too, such as bean salad, tuna salad, Greek salad, potato salad, and even fruit salads.

Salads can be eaten at different times during a meal. Some are eaten at the start as a light appetizer. Others are served on the side with the main dish, like coleslaw. Some salads have enough protein from things like eggs, legumes, or cheese to be a main course.

When a salad is flavored with a sauce, that sauce is called a dressing. Most dressings are made from a mixture of oil and vinegar or from a creamy dairy base.

Etymology

The word "salad" came into English in the 14th century from the French word salade. This French word is a shorter form of an older Vulgar Latin phrase, herba salata, meaning "salted herb." It comes from the Latin word salata, meaning "salted," because vegetables were often seasoned with brine or salty dressings made from oil and vinegar during Roman times.

Later, the phrase "salad days" was used to describe a time of youthful inexperience, first written by Shakespeare in 1606. The term salad bar, which refers to a buffet-style setup with many salad ingredients, began being used in American English in 1937.

History

Ancient Greeks and Romans liked to eat mixed greens with dressing, a kind of salad. Salads have been popular in Europe since the time of Greek and Roman expansion. In 1699, John Evelyn wrote a book called Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, encouraging people to eat fresh salad greens. Mary, Queen of Scots liked to eat boiled celery root over greens with creamy mustard dressing, truffles, chervil, and hard-boiled eggs.

People in ancient Greece and Rome used oil for salads, and so did people in the 17th-century colony of New Netherland (which later became New York, New Jersey, and Delaware). Today, supermarkets, restaurants, and fast food chains sell salads. In the United States, some restaurants have salad bars where customers can make their own salads.

Types

Main article: List of salads

A salad can be a composed salad, where ingredients are placed on a plate, or a tossed salad, where ingredients are mixed in a bowl with dressing. An antipasto plate, the first dish of a formal Italian meal, is like a composed salad. It has vegetables, cheese, and meat.

A green salad, also called a garden salad, is usually made with leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, or rocket (arugula). Common vegetables in salads include cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, carrots, celery, radishes, mushrooms, avocado, olives, artichoke hearts, heart of palm, watercress, parsley, fennel, garden beets, and green beans. Sometimes nuts, berries, seeds, lentils, and flowers are added. Small pieces of hard-boiled eggs, bacon, shrimp, and cheeses can be toppings.

Bound salads are made with thick sauces such as mayonnaise. These salads keep their shape on a plate. Examples include tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, coleslaw, and potato salad. Some bound salads are used in sandwich fillings. Pasta salads, like macaroni salad, are also bound salads. They are popular at picnics, potlucks, and barbecues.

Dinner salads are larger salads that can have small pieces of poultry, seafood, or steak. Examples are Caesar salad, chef salad, Cobb salad, Chinese chicken salad, Michigan salad, and Pittsburgh salad.

Fruit salads are made from fresh or canned fruit. An example is fruit cocktail.

Dessert salads are sweet and usually do not have leafy greens. They are often made with gelatin or whipped cream, such as jello salad, pistachio salad, and ambrosia. Other types include regional dishes like Midwestern America's ambrosia-like glorified rice and cookie salad, which has crumbled cookies.

A tossed green salad


A simple salad of anchovies and tomato wedges


American-style [potato salad](/wiki/Potato_salad) with egg and mayonnaise


A traditional [Slovak](/wiki/Slovak_cuisine) fish salad of [cod](/wiki/Cod_as_food) in [mayonnaise](/wiki/Mayonnaise), _treska s majonézou_

[Fruit salad](/wiki/Fruit_salad)

[Ambrosia](/wiki/Ambrosia_\(fruit_salad\)), a [dessert](/wiki/Dessert) salad