Chopped Salad

Preparation

1. Step 1

   A chopped salad is a mixture of thinly sliced or chopped greens and sliced or chopped vegetables, egg, cheese, meat, or fish, all tossed with a vinaigrette. The best-known chopped salad is the Cobb salad, which generally includes avocado, bacon, chicken, blue cheese, tomato, and egg. However, the only absolutely required ingredient for a chopped salad is crunchy, crisp salad greens. Romaine, Little Gems, escarole, radicchio, or iceberg will work. Darker greens like spinach, rocket, or cress are nice as well.

   Step 2

   Wash the greens, but don’t chop them until you are ready to dress the salad. A red wine vinaigrette, with a little mustard to help it stick to the ingredients, is a good starting point. The addition of a little cream or crème fraîche enriches the dressing and pairs well with slightly bitter greens. In addition, pounded garlic, anchovy, and even a few capers are all delicious mixed into the vinaigrette.

   Step 3

   Of course, the choice of dressing is influenced by the chopped ingredients. In spring, thinly sliced fennel, snap peas, and a few walnuts or almonds with a light, creamy dressing make a fresh, bright-tasting salad. In summertime, tomatoes, cucumbers, gypsy or bell peppers, and avocado are all candidates for a chopped salad. For ripe flavors like these, a simple red wine vinaigrette with a little pounded garlic and a handful of torn basil and mint leaves is just right. Diced pink or golden beets are beautiful in chopped salad, but red beets will bleed color into all the other ingredients. Chopped boiled eggs are good in just about any chopped salad, either mixed in or sprinkled over.

   Step 4

   For any chopped salad, assemble all your chopped ingredients except the lettuces and dress them with vinaigrette, salt, and pepper. Next chop the washed and dried lettuce leaves, add them to the bowl, and toss them all together with more dressing. Taste, adjust the seasoning, and serve.