The Best Salad You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

Hi, I'm Lish Steiling.

I'm a professional chef, and today I'm gonna show you

how to make a restaurant-quality salad at home.

We're gonna be getting into the dressing, greens,

and presentation of a restaurant style salad.

This is restaurant quality salad 101.

If you ever feel like the salads that you make at home

aren't quite as good as what you would get in a restaurant

with just a few tips and tricks and techniques,

you can really amp up your game.

[bright music]

This is my take on a pretty classic French vinegarette,

but it really showcases the greens in the salad.

We're gonna start with a little bit of shallot,

which is very French of us.

This is a pretty massive shallot.

I might use half of this just for good measure.

I'm just gonna chop this guy as fine as possible.

I'm using a shallot here instead of a red onion

or any other kind of onion

because shallots have a sweetness.

They're a little more mellow.

They play nicely with all the flavors.

So we're gonna put our shallots into the strainer over here.

I'm gonna rinse off my shallots for about a minute

because you're taking off all of that harsh onion flavor,

and if we didn't do this step of rinsing them,

your salad would just taste like one big shallot.

And onto paper towel to dry

so that you don't add excess water to your dressing.

We're left with just the pure goodness of the shallot.

So we begin the vinegarette.

I have my rinsed off shallots here.

I'm gonna add about a quarter cup of champagne vinegar.

I love using champagne vinegar in dressings.

It's a very mild vinegar made with champagne grapes.

It doesn't have too much of an overpowering presence.

Now we're squeezing in about a half a cup

of extra virgin olive oil.

If you want a milder dressing

feel free to use a vegetable oil.

You're looking for a two to one ratio,

so two parts olive oil and one part vinegar,

or lemon juice, or any kind of acidic ingredient.

Of course, we season with salt.

Feel free to eyeball dressings.

That's kind of what I do all the time

because you really know if you hit the mark

when you taste it.

More salt.

You know what's mixed enough when

you can see the creaminess of the dressing

that that oil is playing nicely with the vinegar,

a beautiful semi-emulsified dressing.

Without any stabilizer in here

it's gonna separate eventually, but that's a vinegarette.

And that ratio is perfect.

I mean, I can just keep eating this if that's okay.

We're there.

[bright music]

Here we have our melange of greens.

All of these you can pretty much find

at your normal grocery store,

some red leaf, some green leaf.

We have some romaine, butter lettuce, some endive,

and then this one is a little special.

This is a little gem.

Isn't it adorable?

You don't have to use all of these.

You can use whatever greens you have in your fridge.

We're just gonna trim them up a little bit.

The thing with restaurant salads, they always look so fancy

so I'm gonna leave these in large leaves.

The little gem here, we can just break apart.

Look how precious these leaves are.

Aren't they're just gorgeous.

They make you kinda happy, right?

[Lish chuckles]

I think some red leaf in there would be nice.

Red leaf has a lot of volume to it.

It has all of the the ribbony effects

that are so beautiful on a plate.

I'm gonna go for those inner leaves

so that they're a little bit smaller,

and I'll even cut a couple of them in half lengthwise.

It's a little bit easier to eat.

The endive is a little bit bitter.

The green leaf is kind of fresh.

The baby gems has that very crisp texture to it.

All lend themselves in different ways to this salad,

and that's what makes it kind of exciting, right?

Those are our greens.

Let's get to dressing, shall we?

Key to a restaurant salad

that a lot of people forget to do at home

is we're going to actually dress our salad,

so we're gonna toss it in the dressing.

It'll take about maybe three tablespoons

of our dressing here.

I'm gonna start with the dressing in the bowl already.

This is also a very restaurant style trick

because you can actually control

how the dressing coats the lettuces.

If there's a little bit too much dressing

you can leave some of it at the bottom of the bowl.

If there's not enough, you can always add more.

I always toss with my hands.

This is very important because how else do you know

if the greens are actually evenly coated.

So you can feel the greens, and you're not bruising them.

You're gently tossing them in the dressing.

Another thing that is key is seasoning the salad.

Yes, we seasoned the dressing,

but there's a lot of water in these greens,

so I really wanna bring out the flavor of the dressing

and the greens by seasoning

every little leaf that's in there.

And of course, the only way to know if it's seasoned

is to taste it.

I am there.

I think that this is perfect, and I am ready to plate.

[bright music]

Plating is such an important thing

when it comes to elevating your salad.

We eat with our eyes first.

When I see a salad that has all these layers on it,

and textures and colors, I just wanna dive in.

So that's what I'm gonna do here today.

I have some Danish blue cheese for creaminess and tang,

and some toasted almonds

that are just gonna add a little bit of nuttiness

and richness to the dish.

Of course, it also adds crunch and protein,

so it's practically a full meal.

I'm gonna start by taking about half of the greens here,

lightly layer them in the center of the plate.

I love eating a salad off of a plate.

It's a wide surface that you can kind of move things around

and mix and match your own bite.

Sometimes in a bowl

it just gets a little too claustrophobic,

and you don't get to choose your own adventure.

Now, I'm gonna take a little bit of this Danish blue cheese

and just crumble it right over the top.

All about layering when you're creating a salad.

A little bit of the almonds.

I'm gonna put the second layer of greens on top right now,

on top of all that cheese and the almonds.

Stunning, isn't it?

When you use your hands, you have much more control,

and can build up this beautiful tower.

All right, now more cheese

because cheese is never a bad idea,

unless you're lactose intolerant.

Almonds.

I'd eat it.

There you have it.

我不知道谁不会想跳进这个萨尔ad,

but I'm pretty sure it's my lunch.

This is the perfect, simple, elevated salad.

All right, the moment of truth.

Might as well go in with your hands, right?

[jazzy music]

Plop me down in a red booth at a steakhouse

and call me happy.

As you can see,

it doesn't take much to elevate your salad at home.

With just a few little tips and techniques

you just changed your whole salad game.