Simple Green Salad - The Best All-Rounder, Seasonal Side

What is a Green Salad Made Of in France?

What's funny is that the French don't normally add much to a simple green salad.
'Une salade verte' served in a crêperie, for example, is normally just a few lettuce leaves tossed in vinaigrette with a few chopped chives or parsley as an afterthought. Perhaps also because 'salade' translated into English is lettuce. So that's normally what arrives in a little bowl if we ask for it.

However, as we're making this at home we can add many things - that's the beauty of this recipe. Choosing the best green salad ingredients is down to what you can find that's both fresh and in season for the ultimate flavour and nutrients. The result is you can adapt it from your summer to winter recipes - even for your holiday dishes.

Use the Healthiest, Raw Green Vegetables

For the best green salad, choose from your favourite, fresh and seasonal green lettuce leaves. Here are just some: iceberg, gem, lamb's lettuce, baby spinach and pea shoots. If you like your leaves with a more sharp, peppery taste, go for watercress, arugula or rocket. Would you believe the French adore slightly bitter Dandelion leaves (known as 'pissenlit')?

Leaves aside, add chopped avocado, green bell peppers, cucumber, papaya, and fava beans. If possible, add spring onions (THE salad onion), it definitely adds extra flavour as raw garlic is difficult to digest. Just ask my Corsican mother-in-law; she'll give you a lecture on the subject, but that's another story. At least chop up a shallot.

Perhaps the ultimate raw veg is fresh raw peas. There's nothing to beat 'les petits-pois' straight out of their pods with that unmistakable flavour and natural crunch.

What Cooked Green Vegetables Can I use in Salad?

So, for cooked green vegetables add green beans, cauliflower/broccoli, or asparagus, - whatever freshest produce you can find. Cook briefly (about 5 minutes) in boiling water, top up with cold water, drain and chop into the salad.

For me, the best green salad in the world is with oven-roasted asparagus. It doesn't take long in the oven - promise!

According to French chef, Auguste Escoffier (Guide Culinaire) a simple green salad is made up of raw greens. If we add a variety of cooked vegetables, then it becomes a composed salad, such as the classic Niçoise Salad. Although, this latter real-deal from Nice actually doesn't contain cooked vegetables like green beans or potatoes!
I'm adding this just so you know, but we like to add a few seasonal cooked and cooled veg, just for the thrill (Jings, I live life in the fast lane!)

Simple French Dressing

The whole lot is tossed in the lightest French dressing: the simplest vinaigrette made with white wine or cider vinegar and olive oil. Just place in a jar and shake. I mean, shake the jar, not you, and with the lid on (sometimes I do state the obvious, no?).

For a simple salad, the dressing rule is
3 parts oil to one part vinegar, salt and pepper.

Auguste Escoffier in his Guide Culinaire (1903)

Add the sauce just before you serve. There's nothing worse than salad that has been sitting in its dressing for too long and resulted in turning limp, lifeless and downright soggy. Keep it crisp!

Either place salad directly on serving plates and dribble over the vinaigrette. Better still, pour over the sauce in the salad bowl and give it a good toss together so that everyone present turns up dressed and slightly shiny!

Adding the Finishing Crunch to Green Salad

For the finishing crunch to your salad, add toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas, also green). Pepitas are good for you, with a good source of iron. Just one portion of this salad provides 22% of your daily value of iron.

Toast them, just like for walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios or sesame seeds, without any oil in a frying pan. Toss around for only 3-5 minutes, depending on your preferred toastiness. This helps to bring out their flavour and is such a handy topping on all sorts of light lunches and salads. Make a large batch and, once cool, store in a lidded jar for up to 6 weeks.

For extra flavour, add some fresh herbs - even herb flowers if you can, which taste just as good. Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley particularly provides a vitamin C boost. Otherwise personal favourites are chives, basil, mint, coriander/cilantro, chervil and tarragon. Also top with a sprinkling of French croûtons with garlic.

Extra Ingredients for a Green Salad

Use the recipe card below as a guide, as it's the type of simple salad that changes to season and your taste. While some are green, others are vegetables and fruit that are just as good with different textures and tastes.
It all depends on what you're serving it with. Optional ingredient ideas (with their corresponding market guide pages):

• Radishes - add them whole, sliced or toss in a few pickled radishes (without sugar).
• Beetroot - either sliced pickled or grated raw.
• Carrots - grated adds colour for the bunnies at the table.
• Olives - we particularly love small Niçois olives as less sharp, but go green with the salty, large Kalamatas (that will keep them quiet a while!) If with stones, don't forget to warn guests at the table.
• Apples - we love the touch of acidity. Granny Smith, Braeburn, Chantecler do it.
• Strawberries - Why not? Like tomatoes, this works. I had a simple strawberry and arugula salad with parmesan and deleted it by accident 2 years ago. It's basically the same recipe!
• Parmesan - which reminds me. A few shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano is delicious with above arugula and wild strawberries.

Serving Ideas

See how versatile it is? For such a simple green salad, it can be served with:

• Breakfast or brunch: with cheese scones and cheese waffles.
• Light lunches and picnics: with cold and cured meats, pizza, tarts and cheese.
  Delicious with onion tarte tatin, smoked haddock fishcakes and a Corsican mint omelette. A green salad is, however, most served in France with classic savoury crêpes, our popular thin buckwheat pancakes from Brittany and Normandy.
• Main dishes: BBQs, grilled meats, risotto and pasta.
  Perfect with chorizo risotto, Corsican cheese lasagna, goat's cheese pasta, creamy lemon pasta sauce and Alsatian egg noodles.
• Pair it like in all Paris brasseries and cafés with this easy Croque Monsieur recipe.

Delicious and nutritious at any time of year, enjoy with your favourite seasonal veggies to complement any meal.

More salads to enjoy:

• Warm Goat's Cheese Salad (salade de chèvre chaud)
• Roquefort Salad with pear and walnuts (the King of French blue cheese)
• Roast beetroot salad with smoked mackerel
• Land and sea salad (terre et mer)
• Carrot Salad, Moroccan style
• Classic Niçoise salad