It's May and Salad School is back in session! I'm excited to introduce new salad recipes, my best tips to making delicious greens, and the best secrets to achieve restaurant worthy salads at home. Are you ready to eat your veggies?
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Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon. And then this is Kitchen Prescription, the podcast you listen to when you don't know what to make for dinner. Today is episode eighty one slid School. So it's the beginning of May, and chances are you might be feeling a little anxious. As we all know that May is known for being one of the craziest months of the year, between spring sports and performances and end of school celebrations. It's just general life craziness. I am in the midst of extracurricular activities on weeknights, school projects that have to be wrapped up, end of your field trips, no I got to go whale watching, which is exciting, and just general busyness. And there's a good chance you're also feeling this, so I'm just sending solidarity at the top of the episode. Hang in there, May. It's intense. It's it's intense despite the pace of life right now, I still am trying to mean a habit I developed about a year ago, which is getting a daily salad in I really like having a salad every day. When I eat better, I feel better, And it's just a practice I really love and sometimes I'm turning a big salad into dinner that I'm serving to the whole family with a side of rotisserie chicken or salmon that I've put in the air fryer. And sometimes I'm just getting my salad in for lunch. But today on the podcast, what I wanted to do is have a mini session of salad school. As I've been making daily salads for the past year, i want to just share some of my best tips for building a delicious salad with ingredients that you likely have on hand. I've kind of made this formula that are some salad rules to live by, and I'm excited to share those with you. But before i really get into that, let's do what we always do on this podcast and start by giving you three ideas for recipes that you could throw on your meal plan for the upcoming week. So first recipe, this is the first of the season, and I'm so excited. I am making an Herby potato salad with bacon and I'm gonna also do it with some grilled chicken on the side. But we are going to like a church pot luck and it's gonna be our primary meal. And they sent out a sign up sheet for coal slot or potato salad, and I immediately was like, yes, it is time. It is potato salad season, because I have one potato salad recipe in particular that I just think is the besnies, Like it is so delicious. It doesn't feel right outside of the summer months, but I think we are close enough to summer that it is time to make the potato salad. So I'm gonna make that, and then it's kind of like a barbecue, so we're gonna grilled chicken, and other people signed up for watermelon and stuff like that, so I'm just really excited, you guys. It's so good, And I just added this recipe to recipe Club. It's got lots of chives in it, it's got some lemon in it. It is a mixture. It's got a little bit of mayown, a little bit of vinegar, so it's not super mao en, and the potatoes aren't really smashed. It's just the perfect balance of all flavors. And of course I'm topping it with bacon, and oh it's so good. The next recipe might feel a little out of season, but there's a tip that comes along with this. I was just not wanting to meal plan because I'm a normal person and that happens to me too. And whenever I feel that way, the first thing I do is ask my family members. I say, Ollie, you're in charge of picking a dinner this week. What do you want? Robbie, You're in charge? And that's kind of what we that's because then I don't have to make the decision, and we all know that making the decision is the hardest part. So Allie picked baked ZD. And baked ZD is hands down my most popular recipe. My kids love it any time of year, and I love that it makes two meals. I usually I'm in the habit of making at least two of them, and either stick one of the freezer, I'll take it to somebody. I can make that recipe with my eyes closed, and my kids love it. So we are having baked ZD. And then the final recipe is pork and pineapple sturfray, So this feels a little bit more transitioning from spring to summer. Sturfray is such a quick weeknight meal. I like that I can prep a lot of this in advance. My girls love rice, so I know I can deconstruct this meal, so there you have it. We're kind of all over the place, but those are three recipe ideas for you and herby potato salad with bacon, serve it with grilled chicken, bake zd and pork and pineapple sturfry. You can find it and print all of these recipes and Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan with easy to follow shopping lists broken down by recipe. And you guys all know, I create a recipe Club to fix the things that drove me crazy about getting recipes online. So when you use recipe Club, there will never be any banner ads, no longer blog posts or drawn out stories. It's just the recipes you need to help you meal plan quickly and get dinner on the table with as much easy as possible. I am also a huge fan of cooking from a printed recipe rather than my phone, so I love having these printed copies in my recipe binder, and if you are someone who feels similarly, make sure you check out a recipee binder, which is the perfect foundational piece for creating a simple dinner system, a place where you can store and cook from the rect piece that you make most often. It's been such a game changer for me. You can find more details about both recipe Club and the binder at Kelsey Nixon dot com. And don't forget that you can save twenty dollars when you bundle those two items together. Okay, let's jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss a bit of salad school learning. How to make a great salad is a life skill everyone should nail down. Think about the really great salads you've had, maybe at a restaurant, and maybe it's a fancy restaurant, or maybe it's a place like Sweet Green or Just Salad or Tender Greens. Maybe it's just a really good salad you had it a pot luck, or you have a salad that your friend is known for and they make and you love it. What was it about it that you loved so much? Now, think about the salads that you've gotten that weren't so great for me. Number one offender huge leaves, Like I really am not interested in a salad unless it's chopped like I And I know, I know that you can give me a fork and a knife and I can independently cut each leaf, but I don't want to do that, so I hate it when there's huge leaves and salads the exception, I'd be like a wedge. I can get behind like the tradition and classicness of a wedge, but if you're giving me a leafy, green salad, those leaves better be manageable. Next overdressed when it's soggy, and I'm a saucy girl. I like. I like, probably more dressing than most, but there's a very fine line, and when it crosses to overdressed, I'm not interested. Sometimes the salad can be too simple. There's just not enough on it. It feels like maybe it just came straight out of bag and nothing was added to it, or something makes it can be too complicated. So there are good salads and there are not as good salads. You are gonna be a person that learns how to make great salads. And I really think that by learning a few tips and this formula that I like to follow, a few simple salad tips, techniques, maybe some tools, it's gonna help you make really really good salads. So let's get into this. First up, something you're probably not doing that if you were to start doing, would make a huge difference in the salads you makes. Season your greens with salt and pepper before you add the other components and dressing to your salad. It will make such a big difference. So hear me out. You're making your salad right, you got your leafy greens in the bowl. And depending on the dressing. Sometimes, and I would say even depending on the lettuce or greens, sometimes I will spritz with my oil sprayer, my olive oil sprayer, just a little bit of olive oil just to barely coat it. We are not like fully dressing the salad. But then I'll add this salt and pepper and give it a quick toss. Like no one wants to eat a raw green. Well someone might, but I don't like you. Just it's almost like establishing a foundation of flavor when you season those greens. So whether or not you spray some olive oil or not, ugh, I you know, I guess you don't have to, but that is what I typically do. I take my olive oil sprayer, I sprit sprit sprits, I add some salt, I add some pepper, and I toss. Then I make my salad. Try it. Try it. Next back to that pet peeve of mine, I chop my greens. I have this silly product called salad scissors, but literally called salad scissors, and it's just like the perfect blade. It's like it's perfect for chopping up big leaves. And so if I've got romaine, or I've got some big kale leaves, or I've even just bought a spring mix where the leaves feel so darn big, I'll pull out my salad scissors. I just want to be able to take my fork and get a perfect bite every time I stab into that salad. So chop your greens. I like, you, guys know, I belong to this salad swap and it's so fun, it's so great. But I really do like it when those salads come and the greens are chopped up a little. You know what I'm talking about. You guys gotta know what I'm talking about, all right. Another This is the salad to I learned from the one and only Barefoot Contessa Queen Inegarten to prevent soggy greens. This is another pet peeve I mentioned. When you are preparing a salad in advance, add so like for a party, you're gonna add the vinagrette or dressing to the bottom of the serving bowl, and then put everything else on top, the greens, the veggies, the crunch all that cover it. Tuck it aside in the fridge, let it sit, and then when you're ready to serve, you simply toss the salad because that dressing is just sitting in the bottom. It's not making anything soggy because you haven't dressed it too early. Isn't that brilliant? Think about it, even like you're going to a potluck, put that dressing in the bottom. Now you may want to have the option where you're just serving the dressing on the side, and if that's the case, you'll want to put it in a mason jar or some other serving container. But I really do like this tip and I use it often. Next tip, make your salad dressings. I know it feels easier to buy a salad dressing, but you need to know it's really not hard to make a really good salad dressing. Learning how to make like a standard mason jar of vinaigrette, it will elevate your salad significantly. In fact, my salad's group, one of the rules we have is you have to make a homemade dressing, and I kind of love it. I kind of love it because it forces you to do it, and then every time you do it, you're like, oh, this is not so bad. Now. There are some dressings that are a little more intensive, where like, like I have this basil lime dressing that I've been making a lot lately, and because I want the basil leaves to be chopped up really fine, I pull out the food processor. So I do have to accept that that's gonna happen, or the blender or whatever. But still it's not that bad make your salad dressings. In fact, we have a salad dressing cheat sheet in Recipe Club, and on the front page are the six salad dressings I like that are store bought. So look, I'm not above a buying a salad dressing. You will find some salad dressings in my refrigerator. I'm just telling you it's not that hard to make a salad dressing from scratch. On the flip side of that salad dressing cheat sheet, you're gonna find the six salad dressings that I make most often. And that's such a great tool for me. It lives within right behind the salad tab in my recipe binder right next to my salad cheat sheet, So keep that in mind. If you've never made a salad dressing before, try it. And it's also when you make a salad dressing, it's a great way, like if you're trying to just overall become a better home cook, it's a great type of recipe to experiment adjusting to taste. So you add your oil, you add your vinegar, maybe a shallat, some salt pepper, some mustard vinegar or citrus juice. You shake it up and then you taste it and it's like, you know, it's a little too bitter. I'm gonna add a little bit of honey. And then you shake it up and you taste it and say, you know, I think i'd like it a little more vinegary, and you ad. It's just kind of this creative process. Try it. If you've not made salad dressings before, give it a try. And I mentioned the salad dressing cheat sheet. The other one I want to mention is my actual salad cheat sheet because this is something I use multiple times a week. It's essentially the formula I use for making everyday salads. And what I like about it is. I find that it is a good formula to follow for making hearty salads that will pass for a meal. And the reason why is that I typically always include some sort of grain or protein. So these are the different categories that live on my salad cheat sheet. So similar to the dressing cheat sheet, I want you to envision a front back here and on the front are the six different components that go into every salad I make. So I have greens everything from romaine to kale, to spring greens, to arugola, spinach, bib lettuce, even cabbage, grains or pasta. Now, if you're grain free, you certainly don't have to do a grain, but you could do something like a brown rice or a quinoa. I really love pearl couscous or Israeli couscouse. You could make a pasta salad like I have this awesome BLT pasta salad that I love to make during the summer, and by adding the pasta, it just makes it heartier. Protein obviously we want to have some sort of protein, so whether that is a traditional protein like shredded chicken or some panchetta, or some ground turkey or grilled steak or shrimp, or salmon, or eggs or chickpeas or beans. There's all sorts of different ways you can get protein in there. We're obviously gonna have some veggies, and you can start with the essentials things that are very obvious, like cucumbers or carrots, tomatoes, maybe even avocados. But then thing of things like atamamie or pickled onions or veggies or bell peppers, or even introducing some fruits like apples or berries that's also great too. And then texture is so important for me that I always want to have some sort of crunch, whether that's a nut like a pecan or an almond, or maybe even a seed like sunflower seeds, or maybe it's something like crumbled pita chips or sundried tomatoes. And then I usually kind of put crunch in cheese in the same category, and because I get that same textural thing. But I would say the cheeses I use most often in salads are feta crumbled feta crumbled goat. And then I'm a big fan of the unexpected cheddar from Trader Joe's. And then finally dressing, and this could be as simple as a splash of you know, fresh lemon juice and some olive oil, two more traditional Italian vinigrette or creamy balsamic, or you're gotten fancy and you're making green Goddess dressing and you know the basil lime dressing, and you just can't help yourself because they're so darned delicious. So those are the six components greens, grains, protein, veggies, crunch, slash, cheese, and dressing. And then on this salad cheese sheet, if you flip it over, it includes the six most the six salads that I make most often. So I've got an apple cheddar, green bowl, I make a tie steak salad, a lot barbecue chicken bowls, make an Asian salad, I make those BLT bowls, like I said. And then I have a chopped caesar that I love to make that I usually serve with salmon, but I also just do it as a straight caesar a lot of the time too. So this also lives in my binder behind that salad tap. And when it's a Tuesday and it's like, oh, we're having you know, Mississippi pot roast for dinner tonight, so I'm going to get my salad in lunch today. What do I have on hand, and I can reference this. I can either look at the ingredient list of those six salads, or I can just remind myself, oh yeah, okay, I got these greens. I'll poll ind, I'll maybe I'll do some pasta with my salad protein. And it just helps me build it. It helps develop that muscle of learning how to build a really great, hearty salad. Now, don't worry if you feel like this is kind of overwhelming. To remember, I have that princapal cheat sheet that is laid out beautifully so you can follow along for each of these categories. Like I said, I've listed everything, and I've also got a photo showing those offs, so it's a bit more visual. But by breaking it down into the categories, I feel you can kind of mention. I feel that you can kind of mix and match ingredients, and it's a great way for me to use up stuff I have on hand or ingredients that are hanging out my fridge. So that's it. I'm not over exaggerating when I say that learning how to make great salads has changed the lunch game for me this past year. It really doesn't take that much effort and I've become more confident with what ingredients I like to have on hand regularly so that I mix it up just enough. But I don't feel like I'm constantly having to think of new ideas. You can find and print both the Salad Sheat Sheet and the Salad Dressing cheat Sheet and Recipe Club, and if you guys want, you can use the Code podcast to get your first month free so you can check it out. Finally, let's finish with the weekly Gimme five. These are five things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week. Top of the list are those salad scissors. I love them. It's a little gadgety, and I usually don't love gadgets because I don't like storing extra things, but I love those salad scissors. Those salad scissors are awesome. Uh Okay, I'm honest. We're clearly talking about salads this month, right, And I've had this wood salad bowl forever, and anytime I share reel or something on Instagram, I get questioned about the wood salad bowl. But I kind of thought to myself, you know, I could use another wood salad bowl. So I went on the hunt and found the cutest wood salad bowl. I think it's bamboo actually, but it has a scalloped top and it is so cute. It comes in three different sizes. I got the large so I could do big family salads. But it just makes me so happy and it's so cute. I just keep it on my counter with citrus in it, and it's got just enough playfulness and anyways, I'm excited to use it this summer for potlucks and stuff. We talked about dressings, making homemade dressings, and Oxo makes this product. It's called the Twist and Poor, and I make a lot of my dressings in Mason jars, but I do really love this product. What I like about it it's not glass. It's made of like that really sturdy plastic. But it's got measure lines on it so you could make your dressing. And then when you put the lid on it, it's got this contraption in the center where you twist it back and forth and it mixes up the dressing. So if you wanted to make a big batch of like a red wine vinigrette to use on salad throughout the week, keeping your fridge, and then each time you go to use it. You can just twist it anyway. It's a really cool little caption. It's got like six thousand reviews on Amazon, very loved by a lot of people, and I found myself reaching for it this week and really liking it. Okay, the next two we're stepping out of the kitchen and into summer. There is this style of dress at Anthropology that has been popular for a couple of years. It's called the summer set, and I think it's probably the most flattering dress on the most amount of women. Like it's just a really flattering cut. And I've got one or two of them, but they're expensive. They're a couple hundred dollars and they come in like short length and longer length. But I found a dupe on Amazon one that is white in islet, and it's so cute and I'm gonna I got it and I can't wait to use it as both like a cover up throughout the summer. But I also I think I could, like I've got a baby sharp, I've gotta go too. I think I'm totally gonna wear this stress. So such a fine with you was like forty dollars, so significantly cheaper but it's still got that same cut that I like so much in that signature dress. And then finally, last week I told you guys about the only makeup subscription I keep was that mascara. Well, I had one more makeup item run out this week, and while I don't have a subscription, I have probably been buying this product for ten years and it's the IT Cosmetics c C cream. It is my favorite baby cream CC cream that is moisturizing, It's got a hyaluronic acid in it, it's got SPF fifty in it, and I feel like it's just the right amount of coverage where I don't want to look like I'm wearing too much makeup, especially when I have days where I'm working from home. But it makes me feel like I smooth things out a little bit, I get some SPF on on my skin, and yeah, I was so happy to buy it again and it was twenty five percent off, So that is another thing made my life easier this week. That's it for today. You guys, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. This podcast is always meant to be just a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out your meals for the week, and support you as you set up your own simple dinner system. Next week, we'll be chatting about how to make dinner when your kids play sports. I know some of you feel me there, but thank you so much for listening today. I'm so glad you're here. Until next time, happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and look forward to chatting with you and next week. I th