These Salads Might Actually Be the Star of Your Thanksgiving Meal
These salads add crunch, color, and variety to your Thanksgiving menu. They also free up your oven on its busiest day of the year.
Angela Brassinga and Frederick Tippett
Thanksgiving is a big, heavy meal. There’s a reason why a long nap is a classic post-Thanksgiving activity. Between the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and desserts upon desserts, there’s usually not much in the way of lightness on the table. At least not without the inclusion of a good salad.
Salads are a great way to introduce lighter, more delicate flavors that likely won’t be very present throughout the rest of the meal and, depending on the ingredients you include, can advertise some of the dishes and flavors to come. Salads also offer incredible room for creativity. With so many fall greens, herbs, and fruits to choose from, the combinations are near endless.
Most of these combinations will still steer you toward the classic foundation of a big bowl of greens, but the added ingredients are where you can let your innovation show, adding nuts for some additional flavor and crunch, choosing different cheeses for different levels of creaminess, and different aftertastes, and of course the all-important dressing, tying all the ingredients together with the shared flavor of the glaze.
You can also step away from tradition, preparing a salad served warm with sauteed mushrooms and a sauce, or with a salad that’s just Belgian endive spears adorned with crumbled blue cheese and a shallot vinaigrette.
While the salad’s difference from the rest of the Thanksgiving dishes means opportunities for different flavors and ingredients, as always with a first dish, it’s got to be done well. Not to worry though, these recipes are sure to set you up for success.
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Chicories with Dates and Parmesan Walnut Vinaigrette
“This salad is all about texture. The crispy chicories, jammy dates, and crunchy walnuts are very satisfying,” says Kelly Mariani, chef at Scribe Winery, in Sonoma County.
“This dish is a Chez Panisse classic,” Lulu chef David Tanis says. A larger log of cheese can be used to easily increase the yield of this recipe—which would make for a show-stopping accompaniment to a charcuterie spread.
Refreshing yet comforting, a winter panzanella offers the key to low-stress holiday hosting. It’s simple, quick, and an all-around favorite, so you can easily switch out ingredients and make it what you want. Bonus: The sturdy radicchio won’t wilt, so you can prep this in advance.
Imagine a cheese plate in salad form: sweet Red d’Anjou pears team up with sharp, nutty parmesan. Though the red pears add a pop of color, green ones work well too. Save any extra dressing as a dip for raw vegetables or to slather on bread.
Cookbook author Deborah Madison always brings out the best in every vegetable. Shallot vinaigrette and crumbled blue cheese are deliciously refreshing with Belgian endive.
Cookbook author Andrea Nguyen and her family serve this crunchy Vietnamese-flavored slaw the day after Thanksgiving with leftovers. But we think it’s worthy of a spot on the holiday menu.
The dressing, made with roasted walnut oil, unfiltered apple juice, and apple cider vinegar, makes this salad of crisp apples and nutty arugula extra memorable.