Salad Freak: Recipes to Feed a Healthy Obsession

With over a decade of cooking for Martha Stewart under her belt, recipe developer Damuck debuts with a vibrant collection that proves “how easy it can be to make a really mind-blowing and exceptionally beautiful salad.” Putting the focus on a balance of flavors, textures, and colors, she presents 100 punchy salads that are “anything but boring.” Recipes are organized by season so as to take advantage of the best produce available at any given time. Citrus (at its peak in the colder months) lends colorful flavor to a number of winter options—such as a plate of radicchio and blood oranges drenched in turmeric dressing—while sweet salads salute summer’s strawberries. Peas feature largely in six spring offerings—including a heavenly combination with prosciutto and homemade ricotta. Whether her wilted swiss chard with a crispy egg passes as a salad is up for debate, but it’s a delicious interpretation regardless. Classic standbys, meanwhile, get dolled up: lemon zest gives a kick to chicken salad, and cobb salad gets the barbecue treatment via a recipe from Snoop Dogg. In addition to the sundry dressing recipes on offer throughout, Damuck arms readers with a “basic formula”—one part acid, three parts oil, and “whatever extra[s] sound good”—to ace their own DIY vinaigrettes. If Alison Roman is the queen of stews, Damuck easily reigns in the kingdom of salads. (Mar.)