Chopped Salad Sandwich Recipes & History For National Salad Month
|
May is National Salad Month, and if you haven’t yet tried a chopped salad sandwich, this is the time! How would our culture evolve at seemingly warp speed if not for TikTok? One of the foods that has viraled into our lives is the chopped salad sandwich, which appeared a couple of years ago and quickly became a thing. Just as with a conventional chopped salad, each bite delivers a delightful blend of flavors and textures. You don’t have to start with a conventional salad—say, a Chef Salad or a Greek Salad. If you prefer, you can take many popular sandwich fillings—BLT, club, falafel, ham and cheese, hoagie, po’ boy, Reuben, turkey and Swiss—add enough veggies, chop the ingredients, and bind with your favorite dressing. Dressing serves as the binding agent, but if you use a thin dressing (e.g. vinaigrette instead of mayo), you need a stronger bread. The viral sandwiches are on hero rolls, but we prefer ours on crusty baguette or rustic loaves (for crunch), focaccia or naan (for sturdiness). While we enjoy pita pockets, be had to search for thicker ones so the dressing different drip through. > The history of the chopped salad is below. > The history of the sandwich. > The different types of sandwiches: a photo glossary. > The 40+ salad holidays. It’s easy to turn your favorite salad into a chopped salad sandwich. Finely dice your favorite ingredients—largely veggies and proteins, but nuts and fruits (dried or fresh) and other crunch (e.g. Chinese noodles) work, too. Thus far, we’ve turned these salads into chopped salad sandwiches (we use a mezzaluna rocker, photo #8): Next up we’re planning a Mexican chicken salad with tomatoes, bean, corn, and tortilla strips, using the Cheesecake Factory’s recipe. You can invent your own chopped salad sandwich too, and that’s the fun of it. We had the remnants of a Mediterranean dinner in the fridge, so created our own Mediterranean chopped salad sandwich with: The ancient Romans made a forerunner of the modern chopped salad called acetaria (their word for salad, derived from acetum, Latin for vinegar). An assortment of raw vegetables were cut into small pieces and dressed with vinegar, oil, and herbs. The modern chopped salad began to appear in the early 20th century. Beginning in the 1920s, versions of the Italian Antipasto Salad (photo #4) began to appear on menus of Italian-American restaurants in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, cities with large Italian immigrant populations. Taking the ingredients off the antipasto platter, as it were, the Antipasto Salad was (and is) a mix of cured meats, cheeses, and vegetables, all cut into bite-sized pieces and dressed with olive oil and vinegar. But it was a Beverly Hills restaurateur who created the dish that engendered the spread of chopped salads nationwide, helping to establish chopped salad as a restaurant staple. It was created by Jean Leon (né Lluís Ferreny Anguera), the founder of La Scala restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. The eponymous La Scala Salad (photo #5) was on the menu when he opened the original La Scala restaurant in 1956 (it’s still there, in a different location). Leon had emmigrated from Aragon, Spain. His restaurant quickly became famous among Hollywood celebrities and elites, and the La Scala chopped salad became one of his signature dishes. It was its own version of the antipasto salad, featuring finely diced lettuce, salami, mozzarella cheese, and garbanzo beans (chickpeas) with a distinctive vinaigrette dressing. It was chopped so finely that it could be eaten with a spoon, which was part of its appeal: It allowed celebrities to eat salad neatly without worrying about being photographed with lettuce hanging from their mouths. The salad was widely copied in restaurants across the country and is considered one of the pioneering versions of the modern chopped salad. The Cobb salad, debuting in 1937, certainly is a chopped salad (photo #7) although it was never marketed in those terms. Still, it contributed to the format’s popularity with its aesthetic appeal of rows of finely diced ingredients. By the 1980s and 1990s, chopped salads had become increasingly popular in American restaurants, particularly in delis and Italian-American establishments. The early 2000s saw a major boom in chopped salad chains like Chopt and Sweetgreen, which made customizable chopped salads. Thusly, the chopped salad became lunch staple. What’s next? With today’s global cuisine influences and the availability of specialty ingredients, there’s no stopping the opportunity to create vibrant variations. We don’t want to close without a shout-out to sandos that appeared long before chopped salad sandwiches (and long before the word sando, for that matter, which first appeared in print in the U.S. in 1965): *The difference between Chef Salad and Cobb Salad: They have more similarities than differences. For starters, both include lettuce (usually iceberg or romaine), tomato, and hard-boiled eggs. The meats, cheeses, other veggies, and dressings differ. Both are plated with the other ingredients on top of the greens. Chef salad is sometimes tossed. > Meats: Chef has ham, turkey, and/or roast beef; Cobb has grilled/roasted chicken and bacon. > Cheese: Chef has Swiss or Cheddar), Cobb has blue cheese. > Other Veggies: Chef has cucumbers, Cobb has avocado. > Dressing: Chef has Thousand Island, Ranch, or vinaigrette; Cobb has blue cheese, Ranch, or vinaigrette. †Yes, olives are fruits, not vegetables. They are the fruit of the olive tree. Not all fruits are sweet: Chiles are also fruits. CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM. |
|
|
|
|
||
