How To Pick The Right Salad Dressing For Your Greens

Despite how hard you try, it's often difficult to replicate the tastiest salad from your favorite restaurant. Which is odd, because it doesn't seem that difficult to chop up some veggies, toss them in a bowl, and drizzle them with dressing. Well, even though salads are typically something even a novice chef can successfully make, there is a specific talent for finding the right combination of taste, texture, and dressing to create a crispy, crunchy, flavorful salad.

We wanted to add some expert tips for picking out the right salad dressing for your greens to our recipe book, so we spoke to Chef Megan McCarthy, the Edible Garden Chef at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and Founder of Healthy Eating 101. According to McCarthy, there are three main categories of greens to look out for when building a salad. "Bitter greens benefit from acidic dressings to balance their sharpness, while a touch of sweetness enhances their natural flavors," she explains. "Softer greens can be overwhelmed by heavy dressings, so light dressings enhance their subtle, tender qualities." And finally, mild, crunchy lettuces like iceberg and romaine, hold up well under the heft of creamier dressings.

In addition to her work at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Chef Megan McCarthy is a Have A Plant® Ambassador for The Foundation for Fresh Produce, which promotes fruit and vegetable consumption for everyone. So it's no surprise that she had some great tips for specific flavor profiles that work with the varieties of the greens mentioned above. For example, the acidic dressings that go well with bitter greens like arugula and radicchio live in the vinaigrette family. Chef McCarthy highlights her specialty vinaigrette, "made with roasted walnut oil and white balsamic vinegar," but going for a balsamic, citrus, or honey mustard dressing will do too. Vinaigrettes are extremely easy to make and we highly recommend you whip a homemade batch of your own – it makes all the difference, trust us. 

For the dressings that go well with softer greens like butter lettuce, McCarthy recommends light vinaigrettes or citrus-based dressings. For the creamy dressings drizzled over crunchy lettuces, she says to go for things like ranch and blue cheese. Ultimately, the dressing you choose can make or break your salad. You want to take into consideration the texture, shape, taste, and heartiness of the leafy greens before you douse them in dressing.