The well-dressed salad is comprised of several key elements: the salad itself, its various greens and sprouts, its grains, its nuts and seeds, its fruit or vegetables and its dressing. Whether you’re making your salad as a side or the main entrée, learning to combine these ingredients provides key to making the perfect salad.

Salads are loaded with nutrition, enzymes and much needed antioxidants that help feed and cleanse your body.  Since most salads are raw or primarily raw, they provide much of  the required daily nutrients. They have become more popular in recent years as everyone is trying to stay healthier, thinner and are more concerned about quality of life.

In an era with so much prime supermarket shelf space  devoted to salad dressings, many of which are both organic and quite delicious, you may ask why bother making your own dressing? And I say to you that is a fair question. Here is my answer: yes, commercially prepared dressings have the advantage of convenience and what they also have is higher cost and predictable flavors.

Here are some dressings and combinations of ingredients with both the quality of freshness and the ability to fine tune the subtleties of your menu with your family’s preferences. Here are recipes for the well-dressed salad; to take them out of humdrum, every day–yawn–salad and catapult them into the Land of Yumm!

Here is a quick reference list of the many varieties of salads
From Arugula to Romaine, this list is a helpful introduction to the many choices of salads.