Simple Salads and Tossed Salads

Prerequisites

Before reading this chapter, you should already

• Have read “How to Use This Book,”, and understand the professional recipe format.
• Know basic sanitation procedures for products served raw.
• Know state and local regulations for food-service glove use.

Salads made from leafy greens are among today’s most popular foods. Salad greens were once considered a seasonal item because they were available for a short time only in the spring and then again in the cool early fall months. Now most salad greens can be enjoyed year round. Yet each type of green still has its optimal season, or time of year, when it is most readily available. In its season you will find the flavor and texture of that particular salad green is at its best. Garde manger chefs can emphasize the seasonal nature of greens by creating light, delicate salads in the springtime, featuring colorful, robust salads in the summer, and offering rustic combinations of sturdy greens in fall and winter.