Food for Thought Friday: color, flavor, crunch - a GPJ winter salad guide!
Hello!
I am taking the risk of writing onetoomany emails about salads to tell you today about WINTER salads, which are truly some of my FAVORITE salads. You probably don’t think of winter as prime time for salad, but today I am here to show you just how wonderfully crunchy, flavorful, and colorful winter salads can be! Plus they are a perfect balance to all the comforting, heavier foods we tend to eat this time of year. Let's get your winter salad game ON...
My rule of thumb for a craveable salad is that you need at minimum, 3 things:
greens
one interesting texture addition (something creamy, crunchy, or juicy), and
a really good dressing
If you want to expand from there:
shoot for 3 contrasting texture additions on top of the greens (creamy, crunchy, AND juicy)
aim for at least 3 bright colors overall, and
play with different flavor combos to find the ones you like best!
Here are some of my favorite winter salad ingredients, some of my favorite combos, and one of my go-to wintry salad dressing recipes: a lemony, mustardy, apple cider vinegar vinaigrette.
favorite winter ingredients:
Greens:
kale (chopped in ribbons)
radicchio (bitter Italian purple leafy veg) - colorful and different! a head of this lasts a week in the fridge!
chopped cabbage
Extras:
thinly sliced fennel
thinly sliced or grated beets or radishes (a mandolin is handy for this! If this kitchen tool scares you, get a protective glove. Seriously this tool works wonders for stunning winter salads full of hearty, crunchy veg)
roasted veggies, especially squash, adds heartiness and gorgeous color!
pre-cooked grains like quinoa or farro for a more filling "bowl"
I especially love grapefruit and blood orange slices in my salads - wondering how to cut them? See this guide to “supreming” a citrus, which is just the fancy term for cutting a citrus into wedges without seeds or pith. Personally, I skip steps 4 and 5 and just cut it into slices or chunks after step 3, being sure to remove any seeds on the inside.
Instructions: Add all the ingredients to a jar and shake vigorously until well blended, taste and adjust as you like!
And there you go - lots of wintery salad ideas to play with. See below for photo inspiration! Enjoy and happy friday!
Love,
Jess
Clockwise from left: radicchio, roasted delicata squash, kale, and pomegranate seeds
Fennel, carrots, and radishes sliced thinly using my favoritemandolin:
You can also slice fennel thinly without a mandolin, just need to be a little more precise (it's meditative!):
Oh how I love pomegranate seeds! Break these apart with your fingers while holding the fruit submerged in a bowl of water to prevent splashing of the red juice. Store in a jar in the fridge for about a week! So worth the effort!
PS. Want even more ideas? Check out my Craveable Salad Guide to print out and hang on your fridge for inspiration!
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Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from "chore" to "whippin it up!" through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worthmaking, and I only share those with my email subscribers.
I currently work + live on land that is the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone. And I can't wait to eat at Cafe Ohlone when they reopen someday! Check out this article about them.
