How to make a good salad (and a recipe)
It was around 4am when I first discovered this recipe. It was in the quiet early morning hours, the cats were stirring—already moaning about their breakfast, Andrew peacefully snoozed next to me like a normal person at 4am.
Sometimes I wake up early for no reason whatsoever, and so rather than just laying awake, I usually open YouTube and watch a captioned video on silent.
I’ve seen Kylie Flavell’s name floating around in my YouTube recommendations a few times—I’m pretty sure I’ve even watched a video or two. She’s an expat living in Italy who shares a lot of her life on YouTube. She’s definitely not your typical “lifestyle influencer” (I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do sponsored content for example). She seems to err more into the artist territory, spending hours and hours on editing a single video, and going through terabytes of storage in only a matter of weeks with her footage. She showcases a slower pace of life and content in Italy. As someone who enjoys process content over finished product, I’ve really been enjoying her work lately.
I’m not sure what made me want to watch her 20 minute Mediterranean Salad video at 4 am since I wasn’t particularly hungry, but Andrew and I are always on the lookout for cooking inspiration, so I was intrigued.
I have a theory about what makes a good salad, and Andrew and I thought that that theory was unique to us, but as I watched Kylie’s video, it turns out that we are not original :) , and others have also stumbled onto this idea. Here’s the theory:
What makes a salad really delicious (and not boring) is diversity of texture & flavors.
To make an amazing salad, mixing ingredients with a variety of textures and flavors is absolutely critical. It keeps the palette entertained. Each bite feels like something new and exciting. To achieve this, you need 5 key components in one dish. I’ve listed them below with a few examples of each. Here’s what they are:
A savory ingredient (olives, pancetta, capers, salty cheese)
A sweet ingredient (roasted red vegetables–like tomatoes, red peppers, or red onions. Fruit–such as pears, berries, pomegranate seeds, or peaches. Corn, roasted pumpkin, roasted sweet potato. Chicken or tofu marinated in a sweet glaze like honey and soy sauce)
A crunchy ingredient (nuts, bacon, raw carrots or cucumbers, homemade croutons)
A creamy ingredient (Avocado, cheese–such as feta, goat, or ricotta, homemade aioli, a poached egg, slow roasted vegetables such as eggplant or sweet potato)
Fresh ingredients (ingredients that really bring a fresh flavor like chopped lettuce, spinach, or chicory, raw carrots or cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, fennel, citrus)
A couple of thoughts: Consider if your ingredients are filling enough. If you’re going to go through the trouble of chopping, roasting and/or toasting ingredients and mixing a salad, it should keep you full and satisfied. For filling ingredients, you could include lentils, chick peas/hummus, or sweet potatoes!
And secondly, diversity of cooking methods will give the salad a lot of the variety it needs to taste wonderful. Roasted, toasted, raw and crunchy, soft and creamy, mix hot and cold… this all contributes to an amazing final dish.
The recipe below is from Kylie’s YouTube channel. I fell in love with it at first bite, and I’ve made it 3 times in one week since discovering it. Seriously, it’s that good. Andrew actually doesn’t really care for a few of the ingredients in this recipe when they are on their own, but told me last night that in this salad it just works together. He’s eaten it twice already. It definitely gets our seal of approval. Make it! You won’t regret it.
Mediterranean Salad, serves 2
Ingredients
Romaine lettuce
1 can chickpeas, rinsed
1 small head broccoli, cut into florets
1 small zucchini, cut into 1/4” slices
1 small red onion, chopped into good-sized pieces
2 lemons
6 cloves of garlic, lightly smashed
pitted kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
feta cheese (as desired)
pine nuts or almonds (as desired for 2 people)
olive oil
salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 400ºF. On a baking sheet, add the broccoli, zucchini, red onion, garlic, and 1 lemon, quartered. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt, mix with your hands, and then spread out over the baking sheet to give everything as much room as possible. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
While the vegetables are roasting, lightly toast nuts in a pan on the stovetop until golden.
Chop romaine and add to your salad bowls.
Add 1/3 or 1/2 can of rinsed chickpeas to each bowl.
Add chopped kalamata olives, roasted nuts, and feta to the bowls.
When roasted veggies are finished, divide amongst the two bowls immediately once they are out of the oven. (If the feta was the last thing you added, the heat of the vegetables will melt the cheese a bit for an even creamier texture)
Take the remaining lemon, cut in half. Squeeze one half of each lemon over each bowl and drizzle with olive oil.
Mix thoroughly and enjoy!
