Chopped salad with jalapeño-ranch dressing is bold and crunchy and zesty and fun.
| April 23, 2025 
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 | | Alexa Weibel's chopped salad with jalapeño-ranch dressing. Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. |
Great big saladsThe day the trees put on their first new leaves and I can finally take off my fuzzy hat and gloves signals the official opening of salad-for-dinner season. I eat salads with my dinner all year long, of course, but I don't start to crave them as dinner, all by themselves, until the mercury trends reliably upward. That's when I swap out the soup pot for my biggest salad bowl and usher in a fresh green season of vegetables and vinaigrettes. This year I'm kicking things off with Alexa Weibel's punchy, rainbow-hued chopped salad with jalapeño-ranch dressing. With its mix of soft and rich ingredients like avocado and cotija cheese enlivened with crisp radishes, romaine hearts and a handful of tortilla chips, it's a vibrant, multitextured iteration of the sunny California classic. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Today's specials:- Tzatziki chickpea salad: Hetty Lui McKinnon turns a garlicky Greek yogurt dip into a creamy salad dressing flecked with dill and softened with honey. Slices of crunchy cucumbers add bite to the velvety chickpeas, which can be tossed into the bowl pretty much straight from the can (well, OK, drain them first), no cooking required.
- Pearl couscous salad with shrimp and feta: Heartier and only slightly more involved, Yossy Arefi's recipe actually necessitates turning on the stove, but only briefly. To cut down on cleanup, you can use the same pan to sauté the shrimp and cook the couscous. Rounded out with corn kernels, fresh mint and cilantro and brightened with lemon, it's light but won't leave you hungry.
- Garlic-scallion chicken sandwich: How about some salad on a sandwich? Christian Reynoso transforms a rotisserie chicken into a glorious, Zuni Café-inspired chicken salad that's full of vinegar-soaked currants for sweetness, toasted pine nuts or almonds for crunch and mayonnaise or aioli for a creaminess and zip. Pile it into a sturdy baguette filled with arugula and revel in the ability to eat your salad with your hands without getting sloppy about it. This saladwich is perfect for park hangs and picnics, too.
- Romesco egg salad: Saladify the hard-cooked eggs left over from Easter in Ali Slagle's piquant dish. Unlike the usual mayo-bound concoctions, this one has elements from a classic Catalan sauce — a dash of tangy sherry vinegar, a pinch of smoked paprika, a little parsley and garlic. A handful of roasted, salted almonds adds a lovely crunch. Serve it with crostini or flatbread to catch every last drop of pungent vinaigrette.
- Ambrosia salad: You can even have salad for dessert. Naz Deravian's take on the immortal mix of canned mandarin orange segments, pineapple and mini marshmallows, dotted with maraschino cherries and swathed in sweetened sour cream, is reportedly still all the rage on Mount Olympus.
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