Salad Week Recipes: Enjoying Salad at Home

One of my favorite salads, Summer Salad, which I make at home often in the summer.

We love going out for salad here at Bridgetown Bites, but sometimes it’s nice to make one at home. Here is this year’s collection of salad week recipes for you: a couple from local chefs, links to others, a vegan dressing recipe, and a salad from my own kitchen.

Maggie’s Salad | Insalata Nostrana
Crisp Salads’ Vegan Caesar Dressing
Meg’s Mexican Panzanella
Castelfranco Ensalada Cardini
Salads from the Portland Farmers Market
Who Is Growing Our Salad?

Salad Week Recipes: Pastificio D’Oro and Nostrana

Maggie’s Salad

This salad comes from Maggie Irwin, who with her husband Chase Dopson have run Pastaficio d’Oro, an Italian restaurant in North Portland. They are closing later in July, so we are happy to be able to pass this recipe on, with their permission. Maggie’s Salad is a huge crowd-pleaser at the restaurant.

Frankly, a big part of its appeal is the Honey and Dijon dressing. It’s gone through some adjustments over the months, and here is the latest version:

60% white wine vinegar
40% pumpkin honey from Oso Farms
Big blop of fancy Dijon mustard
A couple whole shallots
And a fist-full of fresh tarragon
Rip it in a Vitamix/blender until everything is blended/emulsified

To Make the Salad

You add this dressing to a mix of seasonal greens (they use those from Flying Coyote Farms), house breadcrumbs (whatever you like at your house), and grated Grana Padano cheese. Simple and wonderful.

Insalata Nostrana

This is a famous salad, very much a known element at Nostrana. It’s also in Cathy Whims’ recent cookbook, “The Italian Summer Kitchen.”

This recipe is published with permission from Cathy and her team.

For the Dressing

3 tbs red wine vinegar
2 tbs white wine
2 tbs mayonnaise
2 large egg yolks
4 oil-packed anchovies
2 garlic cloves, pounded with a pinch of salt in a mortar and pestle until mashed
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Croutons

3 cups cubed (3/4 inch cubes) crusty bread, like focaccia or sourdough or baguette
4 tbs butter or olive oil
1 tbs fresh sage and rosemary chopped fine

For the Salad

2 to 3 heads radicchio
1/2 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

To Make the Dressing

Combine the red wine vinegar, white wine, mayonnaise, anchovies, egg yolks, and mashed garlic in a food processor. With the machine running, slowly add the oil and process briefly to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Makes about 1/2 cup; will keep refrigerated for 1 week.)

To Make the Croutons

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spread the bread cubes on a large baking sheet and bake, stirring and turning over with a spatula halfway through, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sage and rosemary and cook just until aromatic, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat, add the toasted bread cubes, toss well, and let cool. Once cooled, the croutons will keep in an airtight container for 2 days.

To Make the Salad
Remove any damaged outer leaves from the radicchio, quarter it, cut out and discard the core, and tear into bite-size pieces. Soak in slightly iced water for 2 hours (even in winter it’s a good idea to soak for at least an hour, as it crisps it up).

Drain the radicchio, dry it well, and put it into a large bowl. Toss with enough dressing to coat well. Add the croutons and toss. Divide the salad among plates, sprinkle with finely grated Parmesan, and serve.

By the way, Cathy will be at Vivienne for a Book Reception on Sunday August 17 from 6pm to 8pm. “She’ll be bringing some snacks from Nostrana, we’ll have wine for sale, and she’ll be in conversation with our favorite host + chef, Judiiann Woo.” Register here.

Salad Week Recipes: Crisp Salads’ Vegan Caesar Dressing

Ingredients for vegan Caesar from Crisp Salads. — Ingredients for vegan Caesar dressing from Crisp Salads. Image credit: Crisp Salads.

Crisp Salads was founded by Emma Dye in 2015 on North Williams Avenue. Emma says, “Crisp is a small, woman owned business that believes people deserve access to real food!” They also make the only salad Bill Oakley says ever gets—their Detox Salad—as he shared in 2022 during the inaugural salad week (he prefers to get it in a wrap). Crisp opened its second location on SE Division in 2020.

Here is a pandemic-era video from Emma on how to make their vegan Caesar dressing (shared with permission). Ingredients include:

1 to 2 cloves garlic + 1 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tbs nutritional yeast
1/2 cup raw almonds,
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch of sea salt and pepper to taste.
Optional ingredients are 2 tsp capers and 1/2 tbs Worcestershire sauce.

You basically put everything into a blender (she uses a bullet-style blender) and puree it together. She also emphasizes that this recipe is flexible and can be adjusted to your tastes. Substitutions are welcome in this recipe.

Salad Week Recipes: Meg’s Mexican Panzanella

Back in 2011, I developed this salad for the NYC greenmarket that had recently opened at Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, Queens, a wonderful place for large-scale, site-specific sculptures and other installations, that once was a landfill and a dump. The recipe takes advantage of summer vegetables in season, as well as stale bread you might have hanging around.

The demonstration back then went really well and the salad was a huge hit. I’m happy to share it here for Salad Week.

Ingredients
1 small loaf of crusty yeasted bread (Italian-style is good), preferably stale
4 to 5 large tomatoes, cut into a large dice
2 ears of corn, kernels removed
1 red pepper, seeded, medium dice
1 large cucumber, peeled and seeded, small dice
1/2 red onion, small dice
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Cotija cheese, crumbled
1 avocado, chopped (optional)

Vinaigrette
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbs apple cider, rice, or sherry vinegar
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp crushed Mexican oregano
1/4 red pepper flakes
1/4 smoked paprika
lemon juice from 1/2 a small lemon
salt and pepper
honey, to taste

To Make the Salad

Chop the bread into 1 inch cubes. If you are using fresh bread, toast the cubes in the oven or toaster oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

Combine the tomatoes, corn, red pepper, cucumber, onions and garlic in a large bowl. Add a little salt to draw out the vegetable juices. Let rest for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the cilantro. Add that to the vegetables when they are done resting.

Add the bread cubes and lightly toss. Let rest while you make the vinaigrette.

For the vinaigrette: whisk together everything except the honey. When everything has come together, add a little bit of honey. Taste the vinaigrette and make adjustments you need/want.

Add half the vinaigrette to the bread and vegetables and lightly toss. Wait for a minute. See how much vinaigrette is absorbed by everything, then add enough to create your textural liking. Let rest for a few minutes. Add the cotija cheese and toss lightly. Taste the mixture and season with salt and pepper to your preference. Top with avocado, if using.

Serves 6 to 8.

Salad Week Recipes: Additional Salad Links

We did not want to publish recipes without permission, so below are some links to other salads from Portland that you might want to try.

Castelfranco Ensalada Cardini

By Dani Morales via OPB’s Superabundant. Here’s the recipe.

This recipe comes from Dani Morales, Executive Chef at República; at the time this recipe was shared she was the Executive Chef of De Noche. She named the salad after the Caesar Salad’s inventor, Caesar Cardini. From the article:

“Here, chef Dani makes her mark on the classic salad by subbing a rich and velvety black garlic dressing for the punch of anchovies, a generous spoonful of Grana Padano (though a dry and crumbly Mexican cheese like cotija añejo would also be a solid choice) and adds a crumble of local, gourmet corn nuts instead of croutons. Another unique addition, salsa negra is an oil-based sauce; hers is nut-free, but most recipes include peanuts (making it almost identical to salsa macha). Feel free to use your favorite crunchy/oily chile crisp-type sauce.”

Salad Week Recipes: Salads from the Portland Farmers Market

They’ve got a collection of salads recipes from a handful of individuals who are and were involved in the Portland food scene (note: Some places have closed): Chef Roberto Almodovar (was at Clyde Common); Kathleen Deumling (Cook With What You Have); Sasha Davies (was Chef/Co-Owner of Cyril’s at Clay Pigeon Winery); Erika Reagor (was Owner/Executive Chef of Thrive Sauce and Bowls), and Chef Kathryn Yeomans (was of The Farmers Feast, now seemingly defunct).

Here are the recipes.

Finally, Who Is Growing Our Salad?

I wanted to point you to this article from our inaugural Salad Week in 2022, “Achieving Peak Salad Enjoyment Through Your CSA Share and Farmers Market.” The information is still relevant and valuable in 2025.

“Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares and farmers markets are in full spring-vegetable mode right now, and it’s a perfect time for salad-making. So how do you put together a salad from your box items and the plethora of options at the farmers market? There are ways to work it to your advantage and we are here to show you how.”