BEST WEDGE SALAD HOW TO
BEST WEDGE SALAD MAC

The Balsamic Glaze, also known as a Balsamic Reduction, is what makes this wedge salad the best ever! All you need to make the glaze is Balsamic Vinegar and Brown Sugar (recipe below). Also, shop for a milder blue like gorgonzola or a Danish Blue.Ĭherry Tomatoes – Not only do these add a pop of color to the salad, but they’re also sweet and delicious.īacon – Use thick-cut bacon slices and cook them until they are crispy and drain on paper towels.įried Onions – While you can use a thinly sliced red onion, I think the crispy fried onions are the perfect texture and flavor and make the salad a little bit more fun.Ĭhives – Sprinkle them on top for the best fresh flavor addition.īalsamic Glaze – Last but not least, don’t forget the SECRET INGREDIENT. Or make a delicious homemade blue cheese dressing too.īlue Cheese Crumbles – No matter what salad dressing you decide to use, the blue cheese crumbles add so much delicious flavor to the salad! Try just a little, even if you are not a fan of blue cheese. Step 2: Once the outside leaves are removed then we can cut the head of lettuce in half. Remove the outside leaves, typically those leaves are somewhat thin and slightly wilted, or excessively dirty.

BEST WEDGE SALAD HOW TO

You can use your favorite bottled dressing or make it from scratch ( try our Buttermilk Ranch Dressing recipe here). Ingredients: How to cut the lettuce: Step 1: A wedge salad starts with a full head of ice berg lettuce. Bring it out into the daylight, and the wedge looks absurd.Head of Iceberg Lettuce – Look for a medium to large head so that you can get four good-sized wedges of iceberg lettuce out of it.īlue Cheese Dressing – If you prefer Ranch Dressing, that works here too. A salad this ridiculous only makes sense inside the confines of a restaurant purposely designed for gluttony. 'You're in a comfortable zone when you order a wedge salad,' says Tentori. No other wedge salad in town looks anything like it, yet it still follows the basic wedge formula of a creamy dressing, blue cheese crumbles, tomatoes and bacon.

Instead of offering a quarter wedge of lettuce, Tentori uses two fat slices of iceberg lettuce that are dressed simply and then stacked on top of each other. Tentori isn't big on changing the core characteristics of the salad, though he does believe it should look dramatic. Maybe we Americans have been conditioned, like Pavlov’s dogs, to crave an obscene portion of beef following a wedge salad. Even though the salad packs in the calories, the wedge makes no sense unless it's followed by something else, preferably steak. Yet, when I visited steakhouses and tried only eating a wedge salad, I left deeply unsatisfied.

BEST WEDGE SALAD MAC

Think about that: Most people would gawk in horror if you scarfed down an entire Big Mac before digging into a hulking slab of well-marbled beef, yet for some reason it makes sense to start a meal at a steakhouse with a wedge salad. 'Arguably, there are more calories and fat in a wedge salad than in a Big Mac.' 'Many of these salads, once restaurants add cheese and creamy dressings, can be over 1,000 calories,' says Doerfler. The problem isn't the iceberg lettuce, but what goes on top, says Doerfler: 'Americans are very good at putting cheese and creamy sauces on things.' This habit means that a wedge salad can often contain more calories than you probably assume. 'That can help replicate the feeling of fullness.' 'It has fiber and a high water content,' says Doerfler. Plus, we use hand-cut Nueske's bacon that we fry to order, and that's not cheap.”īethany Doerfler, a clinical research specialist at the Digestive Health Center at Northwestern Medicine, says that iceberg lettuce is 'the least nutritious of all the lettuces available,' though she was quick to add that it isn't completely devoid of good attributes. 'We typically use two types of blue cheese that are not inexpensive. 'The surrounding ingredients of a wedge salad are very expensive,' says Couper. 'When all the elements are executed right, it's awesome.' For Couper, the iceberg lettuce must be cold and 'heavy for its weight.' And while the lettuce doesn't cost much, all the other components probably will. Still, Couper had nothing but nice things to say about the wedge. 'Because they have many of the same ingredients, I didn't see the need to have two salads with the same flavors.' (If you're really missing the chef's version, the Michael Jordan restaurant in suburban Oak Brook still has a wedge salad on the menu.) 'We change the menu often, and this cycle I wanted to do a chopped salad,' says Couper. Turns out, Michael Jordan's Steak House usually does serve a wedge salad, but I just happened to catch the restaurant when the dish had been rotated off the menu.

Best wedge salad