The #1 Ingredient You Should Be Adding to Your Salads but Probably Aren’t, According to a Food Editor

Carolyn Malcoun
·2 min read
1

It makes every bite pop.

<p>Jenny Huang</p>

Jenny Huang

Reviewed by Dietitian Victoria Seaver, M.S., RD

I really, truly love salad. My family eats hearty salads for dinner at least once a week (more frequently in the summer). And it’s my go-to lunchtime meal. One thing I started doing was making clean-up-after-dinner salads that I bring to work for lunch. What that means is this: I put salad greens into a container, then add leftovers from dinner as I put things away. Not only is it a great way to use up bits that I wouldn’t typically save, but it also makes for some pretty interesting salad combinations. And one of my favorite salad toppers came out of this process—pickled vegetables.

Related: 21 Easy Salads for Lunch

I was cleaning up after taco night, so making taco salad was the obvious move. I scooped some leftover seasoned ground turkey on top of the greens (at this point, it was cold, so it wouldn’t wilt the lettuce), along with a spoonful of beans. The leftover shredded cheese went in there too. Then, I looked at the pickled onions. Well, duh, those would be good in there too!

I took them out of the brine with a fork and set them on a paper towel to drain before adding them to the container. This step is key, as the salty brine can wilt the greens. The next day, I dug into my taco salad and knew I had made the right choice. Every bite was packed with flavor, and those pickled onions gave my salad extra zing.

I make pickled onions every week or two, usually when we have tacos or falafel for dinner. So why hadn’t I been doing this for every salad? It’s not like I hadn’t had pepperoncini in salads before—or olives for that matter.

I find that the pickled onions go with just about everything, and I love adding spicy pepperoncini to a salad with chopped fresh mozzarella and salami or pepperoni. I'm a big fan of pickled veggies in general, so I also regularly buy ginger-lime pickled carrots, which I throw over a salad with leftover steak or chicken, chopped cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes.

No matter which pickled vegetable I reach for, I know my salad will never be sad again.

Read the original article on Eating Well.