I Need a Salad Cookbook

February 17, 2019 12:44 AM

My idea of salad is lettuce leaves, tomato and carrot which is boring and not very filling. Please help me find a salad cookbook.

I'm looking for a cookbook that teaches me to make salads like I see in cafes and restaurants - interesting, doesn't necessarily contain lettuce and will keep me full until dinner.

posted by poxandplague to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

Salad Samurai, by Terry Hope Romero - vegan, pretty involved for some of the recipes.
posted by backwards guitar at 1:07 AM on February 17, 2019

Maybe Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi? It's not purely a salad cookbook, it's a vegetarian cookbook, but the salads are delicious, and I know they are inspiring restaurant cooks everywhere. His other books are great, too. His recipes can be quite complicated, though.
For something much simpler, but not as simple as what you describe, look at Veg: River Cottage Everyday, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
posted by mumimor at 1:24 AM on February 17, 2019

I love Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers - the recipes are pretty simple but have lots of variety and extra touches I wouldn’t think of on my own.
posted by songs about trains at 3:14 AM on February 17, 2019

Mark Bittman’s 2015 NYT list of 101 salads has fed me for years.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 3:27 AM on February 17, 2019

Saladish by Ilene Rosen has great, inventive salads! Depending on where you live, and the sort of produce you have available, you might have to make substitutions for less common ingredients. (I haven't had any trouble but I live in a fairly big city so YMMV.)

Are you open to food blog recommendations in addition to cookbooks? A lot of my favorite, hearty salads come from food blogs.
posted by cimton at 8:26 AM on February 17, 2019

I expanded my cooking a lot by looking at raw foodist cookbooks. If I stop thinking of the recipes as whatever thing they claim they are ("burgers" for instance), and think of them as slaws or salads, they're amazing.
posted by twoplussix at 9:37 AM on February 17, 2019

I've heard good things about Food52 Mighty Salads.
posted by peacheater at 10:54 AM on February 17, 2019

Well, you said a cookbook but you also said like you see in restaurants. So just let me tell you my favorite restaurant salad, which I eat as a dinner by itself, without the dressing or optional topping.

Mixed greens, rotisserie chicken, cornbread croutons, grape tomatoes, applewood smoked bacon, golden raisins, sweet corn and honey-lime vinaigrette (blue cheese crumbles available upon request). ---Red Stone American Grill.

I am not affiliated with the restaurant or corporation but my wife and I go there a lot.
posted by forthright at 11:17 AM on February 17, 2019

Not a cookbook but the sweetgreen menu makes for good inspiration and updates seasonally.
posted by ataco at 11:31 AM on February 17, 2019

Asha is a friend, but I refer to her book Salads Make Me Happy regularly.
posted by straw at 12:37 PM on February 17, 2019

Remember to add a nut or a cheese to the salad. Instantly ups the game.

Even better if caramelized / candied nut, or blue or goat cheese.

Finally, regular vegetables spruce up a salad - julienne carrots, fresh peas, beets, roasted garlic, roasted sweet potato.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:40 PM on February 17, 2019

Not a cookbook, but I asked for "snack salad" recipes here a few years back and got some great responses. You might find it useful: Hit me with your best snack salad
posted by bananana at 3:02 PM on February 17, 2019

Thanks for all of these :)
Food blog reccomendations are fine.
posted by poxandplague at 11:06 PM on February 17, 2019

My friend, the cookbook I recommend in nearly every cooking AskMe is for you: The Moosewood Daily Special, which is a book of nothing but soups and salads.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:16 PM on February 18, 2019

(hit post too soon)

The Moosewood Daily Special has a staggering variety of salad recipes: some that are meant as side dishes, some that are meant as main dishes, some involving fish, some involving beans or grains or pasta. They even have suggestions for other selections from the book to combine each salad with.

It's called "the Daily Special" because the original Moosewood restaurant has two or three soups of the day and two or three salads of the day, and their daily lunch special is "pick one of the soups and one of the salads and you get them both as a combo plate". So they can be mixed and matched in a sort of edible Garanimals kind of thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:18 PM on February 18, 2019