216 recipes. Page 1 of 9
Salad recipes with vegetables, fruit, and grains
Thick-walled and mild, asakigochu peppers need only 20 seconds in boiling water to lose their raw smell while keeping their crunch. The dressing is doenjang and gochujang with a little vinegar. Use cheongyang chilies in the same sauce and the dish turns much hotter.
Brown rice goes in first, then pan-browned tofu, broccoli, carrot, red cabbage and avocado, each in its own section and none of them tossed together. The avocado is sliced just before serving.
Tsuyu sharpened with vinegar dresses this cold soba salad and finishes lighter than an oil-based dressing would. Purple shreds of red cabbage, cucumber and lettuce mix in among the brown buckwheat noodles, and nori flakes are scattered on top. Rubbing the noodles under cold water until the slick surface is gone keeps the strands separate and lets the dressing cling. A boiled egg or some chicken breast turns it into a full meal.
Rice-shaped orzo, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, parsley and mint come together in a cold lemon and olive oil salad that holds up well when made ahead for lunch. Orzo keeps softening as it soaks up the dressing, so it comes out of the water 1 minute early to stay pleasantly firm. Feta is crumbled in large pieces by hand, leaving salty pockets rather than an even coating.
Chewy abalone, slippery sea mustard, and crisp cucumber with red cabbage give this cold salad three textures in every forkful. The whole dish hinges on a blanch of about 40 seconds followed by ice water, because abalone toughens quickly with heat. The dressing of lemon juice, plum syrup, and soup soy sauce stays light, supporting the shellfish's natural brininess instead of masking it. Serve it chilled as a summer starter or ahead of grilled dishes.
Chonggak radishes are cut into thin diagonal slices, salted briefly and dressed with gochugaru and fish sauce, then eaten crunchy the same day rather than left to ferment. If the tender greens are still attached, they go in too.
The sauce holds just a teaspoon of gochujang, and what comes through is mostly soy sauce and sesame oil rather than heat. Cucumber, avocado, seaweed salad and chilled cubes of tuna sit in separate sections over brown rice, with the sauce drizzled on right before eating.
Ice-chilled ramen noodles topped with neat stripes of egg crepe, ham, cucumber and tomato get a tangy soy-vinegar dressing poured over instead of a broth. Because the sauce is a drizzle, not a soup, each topping keeps its own flavor and color. Cutting the egg, ham and cucumber to the same thin width makes the plate look tidy and lets every bite pick up a bit of everything, and the dressing goes on only at the table so the noodles stay springy.
Korean diners of the 1970s and 80s served this sweet mayo macaroni next to pork cutlet and hamburg steak. Sugar and sweet corn take the place of mustard or herbs, and the macaroni is cooked softer than al dente so the mayonnaise clings in one creamy mass.
Red taro stems (akadatsu) are blanched and steeped in vinegar and mirin, and as they chill the red color spreads evenly through the whole batch. Every strip of outer skin and tough fiber is peeled from top to bottom and the stems are rubbed with salt, or they stay stringy and taste acrid even after dressing. The stems bend but keep a light crunch at the center. That crunch depends on boiling the vinegar mixture to drive off the mirin's alcohol and then letting it cool completely; poured on hot, it keeps cooking the stems. With about twice as much vinegar as mirin, the dish tastes clearly sour before it tastes sweet.
Bite into a plump, jade-green stonecrop leaf and a grassy, faintly tart juice bursts out. Heat ruins the leaves, and so does sitting in the dressing too long, which is why they are never blanched and get tossed only just before eating.
From Shiga Prefecture, oae dango combines flat boiled rice dumplings with konnyaku, shiitake, carrot and komatsuna, all coated in a shiraae dressing of tofu and ground sesame. Everything is cooled completely before mixing, and the dish is served at room temperature rather than hot.
Chilled buckwheat noodles get tossed with fine shreds of cucumber, red cabbage, and carrot that outweigh the noodles, and the result eats more like a salad than a noodle bowl. The dressing is gochujang thinned with vinegar, soy sauce, and a little sesame oil: spicy, sour, and savory at once. Rubbing the cooked noodles under cold water strips their surface starch, which keeps them from clumping and stops the dressing from pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The toss happens right before serving and the bowl spends only 5 minutes in the fridge, because buckwheat softens quickly once dressed. It makes a light meal on a hot day.
Salty salami and olives, mild mozzarella balls, and crunchy bell pepper and cucumber trade places from bite to bite. With only red wine vinegar and olive oil in the dressing, the cured meat and olives carry most of the seasoning.
Steamed eggplant, cooled and torn along the grain, comes apart in silky, slippery strands. They are dressed with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and chili flakes and kept cold, and the more dressing you use, the closer it gets to a chilled salad.
Brown rice is topped with pan-seared salmon, blanched spinach, shredded carrot and avocado, then dressed with soy sauce, lemon juice and sesame oil. Against the chewy rice, the salmon is cooked only until its center is still faintly translucent and stays moist.
Konjac noodles, blanched for 2 minutes to lose their faint odor, keep a bouncy, almost rubbery chew that plays against crisp shreds of cucumber, carrot, and onion. The dressing is gochujang sharpened with vinegar and softened with a little sugar, soy sauce, and garlic, finished with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Served cold after a short rest in the fridge, it works as a banchan or a light side, with the translucent strands stained red by the sauce.
Fennel brings a faint anise scent, more fragrant than sweet, and a celery-like snap that plays against thin slices of apple. Toasted walnuts add a slightly tannic crunch, and peppery arugula keeps the plate from leaning sweet. The honey-lemon dressing, just lemon juice, honey, olive oil, and salt, is deliberately plain so each ingredient stays recognizable. Sliced last and tossed straight into the dressing, the apple has no time to brown, and the salad goes to the table as soon as it is plated. In France and Italy this kind of salad turns up in autumn and winter, when apples and fennel are in season together, and it sits well beside roast chicken, where the fennel cuts through the richness.
A mixed seaweed pack usually holds several kinds, such as sea mustard stems, hijiki, and ogonori, and each one chews a little differently. The seaweed spends only 20 seconds in boiling water to keep that springy bite. A vinegared gochujang dressing and thin slices of cucumber add tang and crunch.
Chewy wild rice is tossed with red cabbage, carrot and edamame in a soy and brown rice vinegar dressing, with seaweed chips on top. The chips go soft as soon as the dressing touches them, so they are added on the plate right before eating.
Cold soba, rinsed until the strands feel clean, gets a light coat of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Cutting cucumber, carrot, and red cabbage as thin as the noodles lets each mouthful pick up vegetables and buckwheat together instead of leaving the cabbage in a heap at the bottom of the bowl. The salad tastes best the moment it is tossed; left sitting in the dressing, the noodles go soft and the flavor turns watery.
Chewy barley grains carry crisp bell pepper and cucumber, sharp red onion, and plenty of parsley in a simple lemon and olive oil dressing. The barley should stay slightly firm at the center; cooked soft, it turns porridge-like once dressed. Letting the barley cool completely does more for the result than any seasoning tweak: warm grains pull water out of the vegetables and thin the dressing.
In Seoul and Gyeonggi people mostly say maneuljong, and elsewhere often maneuljjong, but both mean the same curling flower stalk of the garlic plant. Tender spring scapes get just 20 to 30 seconds in boiling water before going into a gochujang, vinegar, and sugar dressing, and they stay bright green with a firm snap.
The only cooking in this salad is poaching a chicken breast, since soy protein noodles are ready once drained of their packing water and rinsed. The dressing of soy sauce, vinegar and olive oil gets its sweetness from allulose instead of sugar, which keeps it sharp and light. Baby greens go on last and stay perky as long as they are not tossed in early.