Salad is a food that likely all of us have eaten. I like to think of it as a “carrier food” for delicious dressings!
The heartier greens like kale, collards, arugula, spinach, etc get a rep for being nutritional powerhouses.
We can’t get enough spinach!
Salad greens aka lettuce aren’t quite in the same ilk as these champions, but they do boast plenty of fiber, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins while being more mild in flavor...
Ideal for dressing up with the perfect sauce!
In this article, we’ll talk a bit about how to grow the best salad greens and create a delightful and versatile dressing to make eating it irresistible!!
Salad is incredibly easy to grow, it just needs a few things:
- Water: salad likes abundant watering (not drowned however!)
- Grows best with natural sunlight & mildly amended soil (add a little compost)
- Prefers cold temps (will bolt or go to seed quickly in heat) so grow in spring or fall for best results
Sowing
You can seed densely or pick the little seeds out one by one and give them 6 in spacing for lettuce head development. We choose to sow the seed in a large patch for baby greens. We don’t get heads this way, but come by with scissors or a sharp knife to get many harvests from the same patch. Lettuce will continue to grow if you don’t pull it up.
Harvest
To harvest, cut a couple inches above the base and leave a few leaves if you’re wanting to come back and harvest again. Salad is best eaten chilled or immediately and will last longer if you harvest in the morning. It also won’t be as bitter. Salad grown in warmer temps may also take on a bitter quality.
The lettuce we grew this spring is called Black Seeded Simpson and this is a very easy Buttercrunch variety to start with.
Now that you’ve harvested, rinse if desired and pat, shake dry or use a salad spinner.
On Making the Best Sauce
Remember, the best sauce is whatever you end up making that day. We’re going to share with you basic guidelines for an incredibly tasty, easy and ever-versatile dressing sure to tingle any taste buds and make you want more!!
The Breakdown
A dressing should be complex in flavor, yet simple to make.
Components
- Fat -olive oil is most common, but sunflower oils, nut butter, seasame oil or any other liquid oil will work well.
- Sour - These may include vinegars, fruit juices, citrus.
- Salt
- Sweet - this is optional, but it rounds out the salad well. Can include honey, maple syrup, agave, etc.
- Any additional desired herbs or seasonings - garlic, chopped herbs, seaweeds, nutritional yeast, etc.
(Optional ingredient is an emulsifier like prepared mustard which will bind the fat and liquid components. Otherwise shake well directly before using.)
With this in mind, we’ll walk you through the way we made it the other day!
Rough Guidelines
We make all our dressings intuitively so we’ll give you the basics and let you run with it from there!
3 parts organic extra virgin olive oil (evoo)
3 parts organic apple cider vinegar (acv)- Wren infused some with aromatic herbs last fall as an added fiesta in the mouth!
1 part organic tamari (you can use soy sauce) - this acts as our Salt
1/2 part honey - more as desired
1/2 part dulse flakes, a nutrient-rich seaweed (or nutritional yeast, black pepper, ground flax, dried herbs, etc)- it’s all up to you; follow your intuition and desire!
We also like to pick fresh herbs that are growing, in this case, fennel, to throw on top. This adds nutrients and incredible flavor!
Make sure to stir the honey in well and shake throughly prior to dressing the lettuce.
Join & Enjoy!
This is a classic dressing that is easy to make and you can infinitely variate ingredients to cater to local, seasonal fare!
What are some of your favorite salad dressings to make at home or varieties of lettuce to grow?
We sowed lettuce in the high tunnel throughout the winter, but now is the prefect time to start sowing outdoors!