To make a good basic salad, you'll need at least one kind of lettuce; and at least two other vegetables, which should be different colors. You should also have at least one crunchy topping like sunflower seeds, bacon, or croutons. Finally, you'll need to make or buy dressing. This guide on how to make a salad will show you how to make a better-than-basic tossed salad.

Having a salad with dinner may now seem a normal, everyday activity. But if you'd asked for a salad 100 years ago, you'd have been presented with a very different dish, full of cooked vegetables.www.food.pop-cult.com/salad.html Go back a couple of hundred years before that, and no one would have had any idea what you were talking about.www.cheftalk.com/cooking_articles/Food_History/78-The_History_Of_Salad.html

Salads have been around since the time of the ancient Romans, Greeks and Chinese. www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq1.html#frenchdressingOver the years, it's come full circle. In both China and the Mediterranean, it was an arrangement of raw herbs and greens with salt, oil and soy sauce or vinegar dressing. Later, it was rarely eaten raw for fear of disease (very real before modern germ theory and sanitation came about), so that "salads" were similar to modern cooked southern-style greens with vinegar, or more like potato salad (cooked vegetables with a creamy sauce).www.cheftalk.com/cooking_articles/Food_History/78-The_History_Of_Salad.html

The French and Dutch started eating a more modern style of salad about 300 years ago, and it soon spread into England.www.cheftalk.com/cooking_articles/Food_History/78-The_History_Of_Salad.html This was partly due to the Dutch breeding of many new plants, and the French use of herbs. With the rise of French restaurants after the French Revolution, suddenly salads were haute cuisine.www.foodtimeline.org/foodcolonial.html

Eventually, this "new" way of eating salad crossed the Channel, along with the recipe for "French" dressing (really the old Roman and Greek dressing).http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq1.html#frenchdressing Late Victorian and Edwardian times saw the rise of fashionable "composed" salads--the exact opposite of a tossed salad, where each leaf of lettuce and each vegetable was meticulously and symmetrically placed on the serving plate, or better yet, suspended in gelatin (which was then made from calves' feet or other bones).www.foodtimeline.org/foodsalads.html

A fashionable salad became more of a tossed salad as part of the easy-breezy "modern" Twenties, although molded salads stayed popular because of the invention of Jell-O, which made them much less time-intensive to make. Today, we've come full circle. An ancient Roman transported to today would instantly recognize salad, and call it almost the same thing: "salata".www.foodtimeline.org/foodsalads.html

A tossed salad can take as many forms as you can find varieties of lettuces and vegetables to go into it. During the summer, you can make a unique salad by taking a trip to the local farmer's market and seeing what is fresh and in season. Farmer's markets often have varieties of vegetables not available in groceries because the varieties do not handle being shipped well.livingliberally.org/eating/blog/Fedco-Seeds-David-Monsantos-Goliath

So, choose two-three lettuces from among the following:localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/tp/PerfectTossedSalad.htm

• Red leaf lettuce (or an heirloom variety like Red Oak Leaf)
• Romaine lettuce
• Green leaf lettuce
• Boston lettuce
• Bibb lettuce
• Mixed baby lettuces

And choose two or three crunchy vegetables:

• Onion
• Carrot
• Celery
• Radish
• Green pepper
• Jicama

Choose one or two softer vegetables:

• Tomatoes--if you can, get some interesting heirloom tomatoes like Flame or Purple Cherokee, or vary sizes with grape or currant tomatoes
• Avocado
• Cucumber
• Citrus fruit wedges

Choose a cheese:

• Parmesan
• Gorgonzola
• Feta
• Chevre
• Monterey Jack
• Cheddar

Finally, choose accent toppings:

• Pecans or other nuts
• Dried fruit such as cranberries, cherries or raisins
• Sunflower seeds
• Bacon crumbles
• Croutons

After you've chosen your ingredients, prepare each ingredient: wash the lettuces wellwww.alexanderpalace.org/waitress/index.html?c=13 and then pat dry with paper towels or spin in a salad spinner. Keep the shape of the lettuce leaves instead of tearing them.localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/tp/PerfectTossedSalad.htm Wash and peel each vegetable that needs peeling, and then cut into bite-sized pieces. Shred, grate, or crumble cheese.

One of the easiest and best ways to ad dressing to a salad is to make the dressing right in the bottom of the bowl.www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to/make-a-great-green-salad.aspx page 3

For the average salad bowl, measure into it:

• 3 tablespoons best-quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons vinegar: choose from balsamic, red wine, white wine, white balsamic or other flavored vinegar; or try lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustardwww.goodlifemenus.com

Using a fork or whisk, stir briskly until all the oil is in emulsion. If any oil separates out, add dijon mustard 1/4 teaspoon at a time until the oil no longer separates.

If you wish, add about a tablespoon or two of fresh herbs--either snipped, or stripped from their twigs, from the following:

• Basil
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Chives
• Marjoram
• Lemon balm
• Tarragon

Stir the herbs in well, if using.

Then add first the chopped tomatoes, stirring well, so they release a little of their juices. Add the rest of the vegetables and stir until coated. Then top with the lettuce leaves. If not serving immediately, first cross a salad fork and spoon, then put the lettuce leaves on top so the leaves are not soaking in the dressing.www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to/make-a-great-green-salad.aspx

Just before serving, toss the lettuce leaves well in the dressing, and then top with the cheese or other flavor accents.

The dressing in this recipe has a bunch of built-in variations. By choosing ingredients popular in a certain cuisine, such as Asian or Southwestern, you can give your salad a distinct identity.

You can give your salad an Asian flair by using Napa cabbage with the lettuce; using bean sprouts and shitake mushrooms; and omitting tomatoes, instead using citrus fruit. In the dressing, use soy sauce or rice wine vinegar instead of balsamic or wine vinegar, and use Chinese mustard instead of Dijon mustard, if you choose to use any at all. Toasted sesame oil adds a nice depth of flavor, but is so strong the basic dressing should be made with peanut oil or walnut oil. Accents could be crumbled Ramen noodles; sesame seeds; or sliced almonds. Cheese is not traditional in Asian food, and would be left out of this kind of salad.

You could give your salad more of a Southwestern flavor by using heirloom peppers and plenty of tomatoes, as well as avocados. Use lime juice as the acid in your dressing, and cilantro as the herb, and maybe a little of the spice cumin. An interesting accent could be cold pinto beans, with about the degree of tenderness in a cold bean salad. Monterey Jack or a Mexican blend shredded cheese make good toppings for this style of salad.

If you choose to buy your dressing, you will find many options: blue cheese, ranch, French, Russian, Caesar, Thousand Island, green goddess and Italian are all made by several companies, and all have been around for decades. More recent styles include poppyseed, honey mustard, ginger soy, Parmesan peppercorn, raspberry walnut and blue French (French dressing with blue cheese crumbles.