Tell me honestly: Are you ever excited to have a green salad for dinner?
Generally speaking, I’m not, though there was a recent exception. It was an iron-hot afternoon and I was planning for dinner. I had all the ingredients to make one of my favorite salad dressings, green goddess. I could easily stop by the store to pick up rotisserie chicken to shred and toss into the salad with greens, tomatoes, shallots, avocados and blue cheese (because Eric Kim is right that cheese is what makes a salad great).
But this was the game-changer, the item that nudged me from a place of acceptance to a state of craving: I had good croutons.
What do I mean by good croutons? Good croutons are salty and craggy, and they crunch assertively and even push back a little when you bite into them. They are typically handmade, unlike those small, sad salad-bar croutons, which are like particle board in both flavor and texture. I’d bought my croutons, but they’re easy to make with this recipe from Samin Nosrat, and they last for weeks on your counter. (You could also add garlic or cheese to those croutons, which would be fantastic.)
I ate salad for lunch or dinner multiple times in the week that followed. It was the croutons. I had to have more. Try them in this classic chopped salad from Melissa Clark, or in the version with feta and chickpeas below.
1. Chopped Salad With Chickpeas, Feta and Avocado
Lidey Heuck’s charming and very green chopped salad has the croutons baked into the recipe, and they’re worth making (and maybe doubling for future salads). This is a great main course salad as it is, but you could easily add shredded chicken.
