The chef's salad is a familiar yet fading star in the salad world. In delicatessens, diners, and airport snack bars everywhere, we find its faithful components: lifeless leaves of iceberg lettuce, suspiciously blue-hued slices of hard-boiled egg, wedges of pallid tomato, and rubbery chunks of cheese, ham, and turkey. To top it all off (or perhaps sitting alongside): gloppy, high-calorie dressing.
But this still-beloved salad may have had a noble beginning. Though nobody has ever stepped forward to claim the title of the chef in "chef's salad," the dish has been attributed by some food historians to Louis Diat, chef of The Ritz-Carlton in New York City in the early 1940s. He paired watercress with halved hard-boiled eggs and julienne strips of smoked tongue, ham, and chicken. (The concept of the chef’s salad dates still earlier; one seventeenth-century English recipe for a "grand sallet" calls for lettuce, roast meat, and a slew of vegetables and fruits.)
No matter how the salad has evolved, its underlying virtue remains unchanged. This is a no-cook meal that satisfies our cravings for greens and protein. And, in these dog days of summer-when cooking is sometimes the last thing we'd like to do-a main-course salad is especially appealing.
In our updated take on the classic recipe, we used a selection of lettuces (early chef's salads were not always made with iceberg alone), and, in a twist on the norm, small but flavorful amounts of sugar-cured ham and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Feel free to improvise with ingredients depending on what looks good at your farmers market. Summer savory or dill can flavor the dressing in place of the mixed herbs, and many kinds of ham and cheese will work well.
Ingredients
Makes 4 to 6 servings
For dressing:
Preparation
Step 1
Shred carrots and thinly slice radishes. Cut ham into thin strips. Tear lettuces into bite-size pieces and in a bowl toss with sprouts. In a colander rinse and drain chick-peas. Salad ingredients may be prepared up to this point 4 hours ahead and chilled, covered.
Step 2
Halve onion lengthwise and thinly slice crosswise. In a medium bowl dissolve salt in ice water and stir in onion. Let onion stand at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.
Make dressing:
Step 3
Chop garlic. In a blender or food processor finely chop herbs and garlic with vinegar and salt and, with motor running, add oil in a stream until blended. Dressing may be made 1 hour ahead and chilled, covered.
Step 4
With a vegetable peeler shave thin slices from Parmigiano-Reggiano. Drain onion and pat dry. Halve tomatoes. In a large bowl combine all salad ingredients and toss with dressing and salt and pepper to taste.
Leave a Review
Reviews (7)
Back to TopI'm rating at 3 forks solely due to the dressing, which is flat out superb essentially as written (I reduced EVOO quite a bit.) The suggested veggie combination is just OK: I didn't think the radishes or sprouts worked all that well.
paulb123
Gulf Breeze, FL
4/6/2017
The dressing makes a fantastic marinade for grilled chicken breasts, which are a pretty tasty addition to the salad.
Anonymous
Fayetteville, AR
6/13/2012
This is a great salad. Don't let any of the negative reviews deter you from trying it. In the forward to the recipe, it is described as a "twist" on a chef salad, so I don't have a problem with the fact that it is different. The dressing is amazing. Just use the dressing as a base and adapt the recipe to your liking. I added some other vegetables (chopped yellow pepper and cucumber) and left out the ham. I also put some hard-boiled eggs on the side. You can call this whatever you want, but it's a wonderful main dish salad!
Anonymous
Casa Grande, AZ
6/10/2006
This is a Chef's Salad only insofar as a Chef may have created it. I have had delicious Chef's Salads that don't remotely resemble the experience mentioned in the Forward to this recipe. As or the recipe, if you served this as a "Chef's Salad" here in nyc, you would be laughed out of the restaurant business. This is one of the very few recipes on this website that I really disliked.
Anonymous
10/25/2002
I made this salad for a taco dinner party. It was a big hit -- it was light (a nice contrast to the tacos) and full of good stuff. People loved the dressing. I left out the ham for the vegetarians.
Anonymous
Annandale, VA
12/17/2001
This Chef Salad is GREAT!! I love it because it tastes great and it's good for you! The dressing is devine!
Audra Parks
Winthrop, AR
10/15/2001
I'm sorry that the writer of this has experienced lifeless lettuce, blue-hued eggs and rubbery turkey, but the above is not a chef's salad.
Anonymous
CA
3/15/2001
