Green Salads

By Food & Wine

Updated May 01, 2018

Jennifer Causey

The green salad is a timeless staple and is at home during any meal. As a side for a decadent brunch, or the a main dish for lunch to an appetizer course for dinner. These salads are delicious, simple and sure to please. From classic Caesar salad to a lemony Waldorf salad, here are Food & Wine’s favorite green salads.

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Escarole Salad with Red Quinoa and Hazelnuts

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Chef Marco Canora likes quinoa, a high-protein seed, because it mimics the satisfying texture and starchiness of a grain. He uses it in this crunchy and fresh winter salad.

More Salads with Grains

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Bitter Greens Salad with Asian Pears, Avocado and Tahini

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Stuart Brioza’s colorful salad is a mix of flavors and textures: bitter, sweet, nutty, crispy, creamy. The delicious hot-sauce-spiked dressing pulls all of the ingredients together.

More Salad Recipes

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Mixed Greens with Poached Eggs, Hazelnuts and Spices

Credit: © Con Poulos

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At L'Arcangelo restaurant in Rome, chef Arcangelo Dandini makes this simple salad with whichever wild greens happen to be in season at the moment.

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Butter Lettuce Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette

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This delicious roasted-tomato vinaigrette is enhanced with blue cheese, which makes the dressing extra-thick and rich. It's a great contrast to the crisp lettuce, salty bacon and spicy pepitas that top the salad.

More Salad Recipes

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Classic Caesar Salad

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This classic Caesar salad is loaded with plenty of garlic, anchovies and Parmigiano cheese. It's also fast and easy to make.

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Lemony Waldorf Salad

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For this refreshingly crunchy salad, Mark Peel adds mineral-rich romaine lettuce, frisée and sliced radishes to the classic Waldorf salad mix of apples, celery and walnuts. In place of the traditional mayonnaise-based dressing, he makes a lemon-walnut oil vinaigrette flavored with cumin.

Healthy Recipes

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Mesclun Salad with Fried Shallots and Blue Cheese

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Fried shallots add sweetness and a crouton-like crunch to this simple green salad from chef Chris Ainsworth. Plus, they're delicious with a pungent blue cheese, like the Spanish Valdeon, which Ainsworth says has "a good crumble factor."

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Grilled Asparagus Salad

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Bobby Flay makes this delightful grilled asparagus salad with sweet grape tomatoes, briny kalamata olives and sharp white cheddar. Each bite brings out a different combination of ingredients.

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Spinach and Smoked Salmon Salad with Lemon-Dill Dressing

Credit: CHRISTINA HOLMES

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This refreshingly crunchy salad makes for an excellent spring lunch or super quick dinner.

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Chopped Italian Salad

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Antipasto ingredients are sliced and diced to make a fun, flexible chopped salad. We've thrown in our favorites, and so should you. Add the dressing ingredients to the bowl, too, and mix them when you toss the salad—it's the Italian way.

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Crunchy Asian Pea Salad with Honeyed Bacon

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Thick slices of bacon are brushed with a honey-soy mix and then baked in the oven until crunchy. Store-bought chile oil makes this salad even easier.

Vegetable Cooking Guide

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Arugula Salad with Olives, Feta and Dill

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To jazz up arugula salad and give it a slightly Greek twist, Michael Symon tosses it with chopped fresh dill, briny Greek feta cheese and kalamata olives. He finishes the salad with extra-virgin Greek olive oil, which he says has a pure flavor and is generally more affordable than olive oil from Italy.

Michael Symon on How to Use Feta Cheese and Olives

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Bibb-and-Radish Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

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Chef Jason Travi thinks of this as an everyday salad because it's simple enough to accompany just about any main course. The dressing can be made in large batches and kept in the refrigerator.

All-American Classic Recipes

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Chopped Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

Credit: Quentin Bacon

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This is the perfect salad for people who love blue cheese: Laura Werlin whisks some cheese into the vinaigrette, then sprinkles more on top of the salad before serving.

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Bacon-and-Romaine Skewers with Blue Cheesae Dressing

Credit: Jody Horton

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Wedge salad (iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing and bacon) is a classic American dish. Here, chef James Holmes reconfigures it as a playful cocktail snack.

Delicious Appetizer Recipes

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Boston Lettuce with Cilantro and Walnuts

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Katya Drozdova serves simple salads like this one at her Moscow restaurants. The combination of cilantro and walnuts is a distinctly Georgian touch.

Cooking with Herbs

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Celery, Grilled Grape and Mushroom Salad

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"Celery is a vegetable people either love or hate, and we try to get people to love all their vegetables," says chef Amanda Cohen. She sets off celery's bitterness and crunch with meaty oyster mushrooms and grapes that have been grilled until almost bursting.

Healthy Cooking Guide

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Watercress Salad with Verjus Vinaigrette

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Chef Corey Lee fries almonds and peels grapes for his compelling salad. At home, use roasted marcona almonds and unpeeled green grapes.

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Bibb Lettuce with Warm Vegetable Vinaigrette

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The fun idea here is to make vegetables part of the dressing. Scott Conant sautés strips and cubes of parsnip, carrot, squash and celery root with thyme, vinegar and oil, then uses them to dress Bibb lettuce.

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Big Italian Salad

Credit: QUENTIN BACON

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Part green salad, part antipasto salad, this recipe combines lettuce, celery, onion, peperoncini, olives and cherry tomatoes—all tossed in a dressing made with olive oil, vinegar and a little mayonnaise. "The salad reminds me of one my mother made," says Fran Parisi. "Her dressing had no mayo, of course—it was strictly oil and vinegar."

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Asian Pear and Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese

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This simple salad has a perfect mix of bitter (arugula), sweet (Asian pear), tangy (lemon dressing) and crunchy (pumpkin seeds). Try it with green apples or Bosc pears if Asian pears are hard to find.

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Antipasto Salad

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Italian-Inspired Dishes

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Parsley Salad with Pine Nuts and Lemon-Tahini Dressing

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Tahini, the creamy Middle Eastern sesame-seed paste, is the ingenious base for the dressing on this bold-flavored salad. The dressing would be terrific with any number of peppery greens, like escarole, watercress or celery leaves.

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Escarole and Roasted Broccoli Salad with Anchovy Dressing

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Chris Kronner created this salad with ingredients from the garden. It offers an amazing array of flavors: sweet roasted broccoli, bitter escarole, salty anchovies, sharp cheese.

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Jordon's Romaine Salad

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This green salad is one of Jordon Carroll's favorites: romaine lettuce with onion and tomato. She adds a pinch of oregano to the dressing, the way her grandmother used to.

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Lao Mixed Salad with Peanuts and Fried Shallots

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A specialty of Luang Prabang, chef Sebastien Rubis's refreshing salad is made with an array of delicious ingredients—greens, shallot, hard-cooked egg, salted peanuts, tomatoes and cucumber.

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Blooming Bibb Lettuce Salad

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Chunks of fresh tomato in a vinaigrette add a little heft to a lettuce salad, like this beautifully arranged one from chef Scott Conant.

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Boston Lettuce Salad with Herbs

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The herbed vinaigrette here would be lovely on any summer lettuces.

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Mixed-Greens-and-Herb Salad with Figs and Walnuts

Credit: JOHN KERNICK

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Using whole herb leaves adds bursts of flavor to this salad. If you can find good fresh figs, use them here in place of dried ones.

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Little Gem Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

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Nancy Silverton's lovely salad, adapted from her Mozza Cookbook, features Little Gem lettuce, a smaller, sweeter variety of romaine. If you can't find it, use hearts of romaine instead.

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Broccoli Matchsticks and Kale Salad

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This delicious, healthy salad makes use of sweet broccoli stems.

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Supersimple Green Salad 

Credit: Ditte Isager

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This very easy salad is a staple on Nadine Levy Redzepi’s table because it’s fresh, tasty and completely versatile.

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Bitter Greens with Soft-Boiled Eggs

Credit: Jennifer Causey

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The key to enjoying greens like radicchio and escarole in their raw state is to temper their bracingly bitter edge with the rich, the citrusy, and the sweet. The creamy golden yolks of soft-boiled eggs and a zesty vinaigrette bring everything together here. For crunch, batons of toasted sourdough (think chic croutons) are ideal for dipping in the egg.

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Green Salads

1 of 33

Escarole Salad with Red Quinoa and Hazelnuts

1 of 33

2 of 33

Bitter Greens Salad with Asian Pears, Avocado and Tahini

2 of 33

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Mixed Greens with Poached Eggs, Hazelnuts and Spices

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Butter Lettuce Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette

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Classic Caesar Salad

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Lemony Waldorf Salad

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Mesclun Salad with Fried Shallots and Blue Cheese

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Grilled Asparagus Salad

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Spinach and Smoked Salmon Salad with Lemon-Dill Dressing

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Chopped Italian Salad

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Crunchy Asian Pea Salad with Honeyed Bacon

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Arugula Salad with Olives, Feta and Dill

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Bibb-and-Radish Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

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Chopped Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

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Bacon-and-Romaine Skewers with Blue Cheesae Dressing

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Boston Lettuce with Cilantro and Walnuts

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Celery, Grilled Grape and Mushroom Salad

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Watercress Salad with Verjus Vinaigrette

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Bibb Lettuce with Warm Vegetable Vinaigrette

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Big Italian Salad

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Asian Pear and Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese

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Antipasto Salad

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Parsley Salad with Pine Nuts and Lemon-Tahini Dressing

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Escarole and Roasted Broccoli Salad with Anchovy Dressing

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Jordon's Romaine Salad

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Lao Mixed Salad with Peanuts and Fried Shallots

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Supersimple Green Salad 