Mesclun salad

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top 1000Simple to Spectacular
Simple to Spectacular

By Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman

Published 2000

  • About
Mesclun, a Niçoise word for mixture, describes any combination of young, tender greens, sometimes, but not always, mixed with edible flowers. Generally, the more varieties of greens, the better the salad, so you have a combination of flavors and textures, from sweet to bitter, from tender to tough. A few herbs thrown in add interest as well.

More than any other salad greens, when you start with a good mesclun mix, you really are guaranteed a good salad. And there are so many directions it can go that we found it hard to limit ourselves to five variations. What we have here are a straightforward salad spiked with herbs; a grilled chicken salad: the classic salade Niçoise, but made with fresh rather than canned tuna: a salad featuring scallops and a creamy orange sauce; and, finally, one of Jean-Georges’ signature salads, mesclun with porcini, artichokes, and foie gras—the ultimate main-course salad.