Vegetable Salads

One of the main advantages to serving salads on your table is that you know you are giving your guests a healthy meal. After all, you determine the ingredients in a salad, and you have the power to ensure that your ingredients are not only healthy but also fresh.

Salads can work as whole meals, or they can compliment heavier meals as a side dish or starter. Again, you control the lightness or heaviness of the salad in terms of what ingredients are used. The following vegetable salad recipes can be used to start a heavier meal off or simply as a light side dish.

Asparagus Salad

Serves Five

Asparagus salad may be served during the entire year, using either freshly cooked or canned asparagus. In fact, the canned asparagus is considered by many people to be better than freshly cooked asparagus. It may be cut into one-inch lengths, or the tips may be cut down about four inches from the top or even farther. You''ll need the following ingredients:

• lettuce
• 1 pimiento
• 1 can asparagus, or one bunch of freshly cooked asparagus
• salad dressing

Directions

1. Garnish salad plates with the lettuce. Place the asparagus tips in an orderly pile on the lettuce leaf.
2. Cut a thin strip of the pimiento, and place across the tips in the center.
3. Just before serving, pour a spoonful or two of any desired salad dressing over this, or place the salad on the table and serve the dressing, allowing each person to take what is desired.

Beet-and-Bean Salad

Serves Four

An excellent winter salad, beet-and-bean salad may be made from canned or leftover vegetables. If string beans happen to be left over or only part of a can remains, they may be combined with beets that are canned or freshly cooked.

This salad should be carefully combined just before serving, since the beets will discolor the rest of the ingredients if it is allowed to stand any length of time. You''ll need the following ingredients:

• 1 c. string beans
• lettuce
• 1 c. beets
• salad dressing

Directions

1. Cut the string beans into half-inch lengths and cut the beets into half-inch dice. Season each well with salt and pepper.
2. Just before serving, garnish salad plates with lettuce, combine the two vegetables, and place a heap on a lettuce leaf.
3. Pour French dressing or any other salad dressing desired over them, but do not mix the salad dressing with the vegetables.

Cabbage Salad

Serves Four

A salad that always finds favor is made by combining cabbage with salad dressing or with an uncooked sour cream dressing. Salad of this kind may be served in any desired way.

Remove the contents of a head of cabbage, leaving four or five of the outside leaves intact. The shell formed is cut into points around the top and then filled with shredded cabbage and the dressing that is to be used. When this is placed on a bed of lettuce, the result is an attractive dish.

To make cabbage salad, select a firm head of cabbage, pull off the outside leaves, and wash. Cut the head in half down through the heart and root and cut each half into quarters. Then place each quarter on a cutting board and with a sharp knife shave off the cabbage. If desired, however, the cabbage may be shredded with a cabbage cutter.

If the cabbage, upon being cut, is wilted, place it in cold water and let it stand until it becomes crisp. Drain off the water carefully and allow the cabbage to drip in a colander or dry it between pieces of paper towels. Season it with salt, and mix it with the desired dressing. Serve on lettuce in a salad dish, or on individual salad plates.

Cabbage and Celery Salad

Serves Four

Cabbage and celery combine very well, for they are similar in color and crispness. They can be procured at the same time of the year, and the two combined make an inexpensive salad. Because the color of both is very much the same, pimiento is added to give a contrasting color.

Ingredients

• 1 c. cabbage
• 1 c. celery
• 1 pimiento or green pepper
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. vinegar
• lettuce
• salad dressing

Directions

1. Cut the cabbage the same way you would for the cabbage salad. Cut the celery into thin pieces across the stem.
2. Dice the green pepper or pimiento or both into very small dice. Season with the salt and vinegar. And combine with the celery and cabbage.
3. Serve on lettuce with any desired salad dressing.

Resources

Woman''s Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences (February 2006.) The Woman''s Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from the Gutenberg Project Web site: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/8loc410h.htm#VEGETABLE_SALADS.