Flaky Toasted Croissants Are The Answer To Your Lunch Salad Woes
Salads can be real stunners, but why do they so often fall flat? The answer is texture. Jess Damuck, author of "Salad Freak!," cut her salad-making chops while she worked as a food editor at Martha Stewart. She ended up being Martha Stewart's designated lunch maker, Damuck told Food 52. The culinary and lifestyle icon would brief her broadly with some descriptors of what she was craving, and Damuck would let her creativity run wild.
Jess Damuck wrote in Martha Stewart that she ascribes believes that anything can be a salad and suggests roaming through your vegetable drawer, containers of leftovers, dried goods, and canned products when trying to make a great salad. Let the ingredients guide you while keeping balance in mind. A salad, like any composed dish, requires not just a balance of flavors, but of textures as well. This can be achieved by using a mix of both raw and cooked vegetables, adding crumbled or cubed cheese, incorporating grilled meats or boiled eggs, using grains as a base, and even utilizing a combination of warm and cold ingredients. There are tons of creative ingredients you should be putting on a salad but aren't. Of course, topping a salad with something crispy and crunchy is also crucial. This can be in the form of nuts, seeds, potato chips, fried onions, wasabi peas, crackers, and yes, croutons.
Toasted croissant croutons will make your lunch salad shine
Not only do croutons provide that very important crunch factor to a salad, they also become a sponge to soak up dressing and provide a vehicle to collect all the little bits and bobs of a great salad. Bread is definitely the most common crouton, but have you ever thought of using a croissant? Kate Reid of croissant bakery Lune in Melbourne, Australia got the idea from another pastry chef at the bakery that used croissant croutons to top a classic Caesar salad, the cookbook author told Epicurious upon the release of her new cookbook. To make, simply toss torn up pieces of day-old croissants with oil and seasoning, and bake or pan-fry until crisp. All those lovely little layers become tiny shelves for all your salad yumminess.
For a riff on a plain old chicken salad, try making a Waldorf chicken salad recipe. Instead of serving it on regular sliced sandwich bread, use fresh greens as a base and then top it off with some golden crisp croissant croutons.