How many ingredients does it take to call it a salad?
My significant other ate cucumbers and onion with some ranch. I called it a cucumber onion salad. She says there aren't enough ingredients to call it a salad, because "it takes multiple ingredients". I pointed out she had three and asked what the minimum is. She refuses to answer so I ask Lemmy.
Lettuce alone is sufficient, but not necessary. As soon as you omit lettuce it takes multiple ingredients.
Also the conditions for a salad grow stronger. If there’s lettuce there’s no worry about adding hot ingredients but if it’s a potato salad you’re only making fancy mashed potatoes if it’s hot.
So teeeeechnically, a salad is a dish composed of mixed ingredients. You could make the argument that you mix any two set of chopped ingredients and bingo bongo, it's a salad.
However, I like to think that dishes' ingredients aren't a taxonomic thing, they're a probabilistic thing. In other words, there's no such thing as "not salad" or "salad", only shades of saladness.
... and so on. To me, your SO'a dish has a pretty high Salad Probability^tm
"Saladier" is my new favorite word of the day.
TIL salad is a spectrum.
I think this is one of those words / concepts where one needs to invoke Wittgenstein's "family resemblance" idea. You're not going to find some exact set of criteria that define what people do and don't consider a salad. They instead have a "family resemblance".
Your probably idea is not a bad way of describing how that works.
I know, I was being humorous but it is in fact the way most categorization works. Very seldom is it a taxonomy; the way we recognize faces, voices, shapes, etc ... it's all probabilistic.
Well, the cube rule of food says anything without a starch/bread is a salad, if you want an absurd authority to point to: https://cuberule.com/
Looks at breakdown of the cube rule: Yeah, okay. That all makes perfect sense.
Looks at examples that follow the cube rule: YOU MONSTERS!!
This is hilarious! What a beautiful, pointless discussion! I love it! 🤣
So steak or chocolate are salads and a salad is a nacho, got it!
Potato salad is sad now
lettuce in a bowl is salad.
To me, it has to have dressing. Otherwise it’s just lettuce in a bowl.
Pop a drizzle of oil on it? BOOM SALD
Quick edit: plug for saladguy12, who just hit DAY TWO THOUSAND
I would probably still call dressing on just lettuce a salad, although I would say it's an unusually basic one. 3 ingredients definitely counts.
Dressing already needs at least 3
By some definitions of ingredient, I see what you're saying, although it might be a simple vinaigrette with two individually obtainable ingredients. However, OP implied they consider dressing one ingredient in the OP, so I went by identity previous to tossing as opposed to identity at any stage of the process.
One, if that ingredient is salad.
Been there and found out that If you dig deep enough almost everything is either a salad or a soup
A soup is just a salad with a lot of dressing.
Soup is just liquid salad.
Fight me.
Soup, salad, or sandwich. In that order.
Soup and salad are the same thing, just with a different ratio of solids to liquids.
I guess it depends on the language, in my native language I think all foods could be defined as either a salad or a soup (even a sandwich is just a kind of soup)
All you need is lettuce and salt. "Salad" is derived from the latin for salt: sal
Oh i see... sal ad.... ad sal... add salt... That's pretty neat!
Can we first define "salad"?
If it's cold ingredients, mixed together, then wilted iceberg lettuce and a gas station dressing packet is salad.
So two.
It doesn't even have to be cold. Look at pasta salad, or anything with grilled chicken or fresh croutons.
I'm not gonna claim a salad can't be hot, but I think of pasta salads as a cold dish. Maybe it depends where your from.
Potato salad is generally cold too, but there is also hot German potato salad.
Something in a bowl with a dressing is salad.
Salad is more fun with multiple ingredients, but everything up there is still salad
Noodles + olive oil + grated Parmesan = salad?
When the doctor tells me to eat more salads, yes
Only if you put it in a bowl
Well, there's noodle salad. I guess pasta is a hot noodle salad, like cereal in milk is a cold soup.
Potato salad is often just potatoes with chives and Mayonnaise. Your SO is chatting shit imho.
it's a salad, it's just a terrible one
Cucumber and onion with a vinaigrette though is a delicious salad.
Two ingredients must be present for something to be a salad - a vegetable and a dressing. I make all sorts of salads. Some have lettuce, some don’t. I make salad with just fennel and an oil/vinegar dressing. I make salad with tomatoes & cucumbers with a dressing. What she ate was 100% a salad. This is a weird fight.
Alright buddy. Here's your "whole carrot dipped in ranch" salad.
But sticks are more crudite than salad
Oh, my favourite!
I dont do dressings. What do you call 15 ingredients and no dressing? A fryless stir fry? Genuinely curious if there's a word now!
How do you feel about chicken or tuna salad?
I feel like that’s a grey area because it’s called salad but only in the context a product with dressing (the mayo). but it’s not really a salad, it’s just called chicken salad the way Kraft dinner isn’t really a dinner but it could be a dinner. I say if it only has chicken and mayo, that’s not a salad, that’s a sandwich filling. If it has celery, onion, etc, you could make the argument it was salad.
What about Kabelsalat?
One vegetable and dressing is enough if you need a utensil to eat it. Example: cucumber salad.
I grew up with the notion that chopped tomato sprinkled with coarse salt is a salad.
You can make tomato salad with just tomato and onion.
Take lettuce for example.
If you put a lot of lettuce in a bowl.. What do you have? A Salad?
NO. You have a bowl of lettuce.
You put a second object in the lettuce bowl (Crouton, dressing, another veg, whatever), Now do you have a Salad?
Yes. You have a salad.
There is no maximum ingredient count for a salad, but you must have a minimum of two items for a salad.
I want to agree with you, but I think the minimum number of ingredients has to be three. Otherwise, the unbelievably sad bowl of iceberg lettuce and Italian dressing that was served to me would qualify as a salad and I simply cannot allow that to be.
Yes, but the argument wasnt for a non-sad salad.
It was just, how many ingredients before it becomes a salad. obviously you would want a proper salad with more delicious and good things in it, but that the same way that a slice of bread between two slices of bread is a bread sandwich, so is a bowl of lettuce and some dressing a salad.
Lettuce, croutons and dressing is basically a deconstructed sandwich
Sandwich? You mean bread salad.
Carrot salad is just shredded carrots with dressing made from mustard mixed with oil, but I'd challenge you to take a bite of that and tell me it's not a salad.
Now mix up uncut baby carrots, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber slices. I'll give you a bowl of ranch, and if you pour it in try to eat it like a salad instead of using them as dip, there's something wrong with you
Salads aren't about ingredient counts, they're about preparation
2 minium?
As long as there's no structural starch it's a salad https://cuberule.com/
I would say the important distinction is in presentation. Was it a bowl of onion and cucumber mixed together with ranch? If so salad. Was it a plate with a pile of cucumber and a pile of onion, with ranch for dipping? If so crudites.
Does pouring the dip over the crudites transform it into a salad? So french fries are crudite? Does that mean cheese fries are a type of salad? I'm not waiting for your answer before getting my daily dose of salad in.
I think pouring the dip over would make it a salad.
I don't know about cheese fries being a salad. I think a salad needs at least 2 ingredients not including dressing/garnish. So you'd need to do cheese fries with like fried peppers too make it a warm potato salad.
Crudités is French for raw things, so french fries aren't crudités. Unless they're raw... ugh.
One. But it needs to be a vegetable AND have dressing AND be chopped into bite sized parts AND be raw.
If any of the previous conditions isn't met, then you need at least two ingredients.
So, yes, cucumbers and onion with ranch most definitely is a salad.
Chicken, boiled eggs and mayonnaise is a salad.
Sure, that's two ingredients, it checks out.
If it’s dressed and a vegetable, is it just a really wet one?
I don't know, is it chopped or whole?
Oxford dictionary says:
Originally derived from the Latin sal for salt, meaning something dipped into salt. Now normally a dish of uncooked vegetables; either a mixed salad or just one item (commonly lettuce or tomato).
There is tomato salad. Just tomatoes, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
I'll raise you some mozzarella.
Add fresh basil and I'm in.
One of my favourite things to eat in the summer
If i chop up a cucumber and throw it in a bowl with some vinegarette, I call it a cucumber salad.
If I cut a slice of pizza in half and add ranch, can I also call that a salad?
I'm not your boss. Do it up, man.
Salad because pizza is classed as a vegetable in your country?
I call that a bowl of cucumber
tomato, tomatoe. Not that I'd ever put tomatoes in a cucumber salad. That's heathen shit.
I hate this one. Most of it makes no sense. I get it's just a meme, but they could have tried harder.
If you're telling me grapes in a bowl doesn't count as fruit salad, then I guess I've never had a salad.
Her salad did have multiple ingredients.
When will the divorce be final?
Merriam Webster says :
*any of various usually cold dishes: such as
a: raw greens (such as lettuce) often combined with other vegetables and toppings and served especially with dressing
b: small pieces of food (such as pasta, meat, fruit, or vegetables) usually mixed with a dressing (such as mayonnaise) or set in gelatin*
As such, even just cucumber would suffice.
Edit: in dutch, a "salade" has to accompanied by a dressing or vinaigrette, thus very much limiting what a salad is.
Does "word salad" count?
Otherwise, 2, a vegetable and a dressing. Because nobody would call a bag of carrot sticks a salad.
Of course not, they'd call it crudite
Is dipping carrots in ranch a salad?
Have a look at the bottle of ranch dressing, and count all the chemicals in there. Is the count of ingredients necessary for a salad now OK?
Heterogenous chunks served around or below room temperature are a salad. To be heterogenous, there must be at least two different things, so... two is the minimum, dressing doesn't count towards the total.
Cucumber slices with tajín? Not a salad.
Cucumber, tomato, and red onion dressed with tahini? Jerusalem salad.
Tuna mixed with mayonnaise? Not tuna salad.
Tuna mixed with celery and mayonnaise? Tuna salad (barely).
Lime jello? Not a salad.
Lime jello cut into cubes mixed with orange jello cut into cubes? Jello salad.
Cranberries stewed with spices and sugar? Not a salad, cranberry sauce.
Cranberry sauce mixed with mandarin oranges, cut pineapple, and walnuts, set into a bundt-shaped jello mold? Cranberry salad.
I would argue that Jello cubes in whipped cream could be a basic Jello salad. That's two ingredients, but it's also arguably an instance of a one-ingredient salad, since the whipped cream dressing doesn't count.
If I heat pasta salad in the microwave, is it no longer a salad? Is a leftover portion of pasta a salad before it is reheated? I'm not sure temperature is a requirement.
Also I have to question calling two flavours of Jello "different things", let alone calling 2 flavours of gelatine a salad, but I know Americans are more liberal with the word salad than other places.
Where I am you will rarely see the word salad used in relation to dishes that don't contain some raw chopped vegetables, especially leafy green ones. Or it's the dish's imported original name, like potato salad. Fruit salad is the one exception to that, I think.
I could see an argument that past a certain temperature, you are now just eating pasta.
I think the temperature doesn't work as part of the definition. If you've never had it, Taco Salad is served hot (the meat at least is, and usually the tortilla bowl is as well).
And some potato salads are served warm
I've had it several times, and that's an excellent counterpoint. I'll reconsider my definition.
Damn, now I want taco salad.
This is the answer. Confirmed.
Is a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie a salad
No, because it's in a rigid matrix. If you tossed white chocolate and macadamia nuts with melted butter and sprink it with sugar, that you could call a salad with a straight face.
Those ingredients you listed are literally the ingredients to a dish called cucumber salad. Though usually the dressing is more of an vinegary Italian dressing instead of ranch. Just Google it.
Cut is as a prep step and it becomes a salad.
To bolster your point I regularly make something I call cucumber onion salad with cucumber, white onion, and oil w herbs, salt and pepper. To me, it's a salad if it focuses on seasoned raw ingredients, esp vegetables, served cold. There's also the confusion over things like chicken/tuna/egg deli salads focused on being eaten as a sandwich or w crackers, and Midwest "salads" for which all rules seem to be moot except that it's likely served cold.
I mean when you put chopped iceberg lettuce and tomatoes, it's a salad... So... Two?
Last time I tossed a salad it was two ingredients, so I think you're correct.
👀
I would lettuce + cucumber, too. Begrudgingly, but I would accept it.
There is a centuries-old simple salad recipe involving just cucumbers, onions, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper.
Anyone saying you can't have a salad out of cucumber, onions, and dressing...is wrong.
Or the centuries-old salad recipe is wrong?
I have no opinion on this matter. I am merely being contradictory.
My girlfriend calls lettuce salad. A bowl of lettuce she calls a salad
I do the same thing. It's green and healthy... That's clearly a salad.
I've often had spinach, some shredded cheese, and a vinaigrette and called it salad.
Are you doing better now? I mean with your mental health.
Two ingredients and a "dressing" is a salad.
If no dressing, then three ingredients or more.
Also, chicken caeser salad is a salad, and it has starch/bread.
Also, chicken caeser salad is a salad, and it has starch/bread.
Deconstructed sandwich
My favourite salad is good lettuce, sliced onion, salt, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. Also cucumber and onion is multiple ingredients.
A salad is at least one ingredient chopped up and tossed with some kind of dressing. This basically requires at least two ingredients. One chopped solid and one liquid dressing. Could be cucumbers and vinegar. Could be lettuce with ranch dressing. Obviously salads with more ingredients than two or three are probably gonna be better, but I think you could call cucumbers and onions chopped up and tossed with ranch a salad for sure.
I grew up eating green salads without dressing, because the dressings my parents favored were so salty and acidic they hurt my mouth. Lettuce, sliced tomatoes, carrots, celery, maybe cucumber.
These days I usually go for a "Mediterranean" salad with greens, olives, feta or similar cheese, cucumber, tomato, bell peppers, herbs, and a splash of olive oil.
If you're making it for a group of people, finding a good mix of vegetables for a salad involves excluding the ones that someone doesn't like. I don't like zucchini or asparagus. One of my housemates can't abide celery. One friend doesn't like jicama. Another friend is okay with red bell pepper but can't abide green bell pepper. Making a salad everyone enjoys seems to be partly about getting all these preferences right and then balancing what's left.
Nachos are just upgraded taco salad.
I went to a party where everyone was supposed to bring a salad and vote on the best one. I brought the nachos. The vote was unanimous.
I generally agree, and good insight! I think though that a distinction for me is that taco salad would have a bunch of lettuce.