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With finals and graduation around the corner and the looming question of, “What are your summer plans?” this time of year can be incredibly overwhelming. But taking control of chaos in any part of your life can be grounding. While some people do this through spring cleaning their laundry room, I like to spring clean my kitchen.

Garbage salads are a fantastic way to use up soon-to-expire vegetables and fruits in your fridge. The idea behind this dish is to encourage you to get creative in the kitchen in a nonconventional way and give you a feel for how many opportunities there are when using food you have on hand.

I find my kitchen to be a place of comfort and somewhere I can push aside the tasks on my work to-do list. Reorganizing my fridge and pantry is a way for me to reset my happy place. While a more hands-on dish like lemon ricotta ravioli is delicious and worthwhile, sometimes it is nice to throw things in a bowl, without needing to go out and buy a specific ingredient, and have a meal ready in 10 minutes.

More or less, for a garbage salad, you throw in whatever nuts, fruits, veggies and lettuce you have on hand and prepare them however you prefer — minced, chopped or sliced. I started by looking in my fridge to see what fresh produce and other food items I had on hand and chose what I was craving or would soon expire.

I found spring mix lettuce, butter lettuce with some radicchio, a carrot, a cucumber, an avocado, Mediterranean spiced feta and a Honeycrisp apple. I also took out an egg that I knew I wanted to top my salad with, but I did not know how I wanted to cook the egg yet. This is the beautiful part about this dish — little to no planning is involved, and the salad creates itself as you go along.

I poked around my freezer and found an opened bag of shelled edamame. Then I went to my pantry, where I found a near-empty bag of sunflower seeds, dried cherries, raw pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds and roasted pecans.

Vegetables and fruits can be chopped, diced, sliced or prepared however you like them. Daisy Leepson | Food Columnist

Keep in mind that these ingredients are what I chose to use because these were the fruits, vegetables and nuts I had on hand and discovered while cleaning my kitchen and pantry. Everyone’s garbage salad journey is unique.

When it comes to garbage salads, I never measure my ingredients. I eyeball how much I want to use. But, for reference, one garbage salad with two generous handfuls of lettuce and all its additional ingredients roughly serves two people.

The same goes for dressing. It can be effortless with just two ingredients like extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar, and you do not even need to use measuring spoons. Both oil and vinegar are crucial components — oil adds a fuller, nuttier and even fruitier taste to the salad, while vinegar adds an acidic, sour punch. Instead of vinegar, you can also use a different acid such as lemon juice.

Everyone’s garbage salad journey is unique because it’s based on what’s available in your kitchen. Daisy Leepson | Food Columnist

After those two components, you can build your dressing up from there and add an emulsifier like mustard or mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper, and you have yourself a dressing. I like to add a sweet element sometimes as well like maple syrup, orange juice or honey. I combined extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard and a small squeeze of honey for this garbage salad dressing.

I threw my prepared vegetables and fruit into my salad bowl and sprinkled in the pumpkin and hemp seeds, some chopped pecans and chunks of feta. Once I put some of the garbage salad onto a plate, I topped it off with a poached egg, sprinkled za’atar on top and drizzled some of my honey dijon vinaigrette.

Do not get frustrated by the process associated with a no-recipe dish, but rather view it as an opportunity to try something new while being able to clear your mind and clean your space. Incorporating flavor pairings you prefer, similar to how I used apples and edamame, will make this process enjoyable and a dish that will become a regular in your dinner rotation.

Published on April 18, 2021 at 9:12 pm