These are salad days—figuratively for some, literally for all—and, personally, the deeper I get into salad-making mode, the more I take on a minimalist strategy. I pare down the greens, the vegetables, the proteins, and the "extras" into tight three- or four-ingredient packages:
Carrots, sunburst tomatoes, and a soft-boiled egg on spinach.
Escarole, fennel, and cold pulled chicken topped with feta.
And if my salads are stripped-down, my salad dressings are downright naked. In fact, you can barely call them dressings at all. All I'm using is olive oil and salt. No vinegar. No lemon juice.
It's not that I have anything against acid. I just find that it's usually unnecessary; most salads include a dose of acid already, whether it's hiding in the tomatoes, the goat cheese, or the pickled red onions.
So I dress my salads with olive oil alone. I try to use a good one, one with a really earthy flavor, and maybe some spice. I pour it on generously, and follow with a healthy sprinkle of crunchy salt. I don't toss, because I've found that the salad tosses itself as I pick my way through it with my fork. (As proof, there is usually a sheen of olive oil on the bottom of the bowl when I'm done.) And I don't stir in herbs, or chile flakes, or anything, because the point of minimalist salad is to let the flavors of the few components shine through.
And that's not the only point of salad minimalism. The minimalist salad is low on ingredients, but also, accordingly, on time, effort, and stress. There's less vegetable prep to suck up your evening, and no stress wasted on making a dressing perfect. Oil-to-vinegar proportions, tasting and re-tasting—none of it applies here, because there's no way to get it wrong. Just pour on the olive oil, and it will always be right.
