Follow This Recipe for Gourmet Salads at Home

Have you ever tried to talk yourself into a salad when what you really wanted is a sandwich? Losing battle, right? Well, at least if that salad comes from a plastic bag and doesn't have very much flavor to excite you. I know for a good portion of my life I thought a salad was just iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing.

With ingredients fresh from the garden, it's easy to make a gourmet salad that can rival a big ol' sandwich or pasta any day. By growing at least some of your salad ingredients yourself, you can enjoy each bite knowing it's at its flavor and nutrition peak—and is still crisp and crunchy!

Let's look at how to grow these gourmet salad ingredients yourself and build a homemade salad you'll crave all day.

Crisp Cabbage Leaves Make a Great Base for a Homemade Salad

First we need something to build texture in our gourmet salad, something like Napa cabbage leaves for that satisfying crunch. I've also found that the sweetness in Napa cabbage means I don't need to add too much dressing. If cabbage is not your thing, you could use Romaine lettuce as your base instead (learn all about growing romaine lettuce).

How to Grow Napa Cabbage at Home

Napa cabbage grows best when the temperature is between 45º F and 80º, and the heads will be ready to harvest about 70 to 90 days after being planted by seed. Find more tips to grow cabbage in your garden here.

The great thing about growing a plant like cabbage is that you don't actually have to wait the full 70+ days to harvest leaves for your salad bowl. You can actually come out and harvest the older, larger leaves that sit on the base of the plant, within just 50 days of planting.

I like to slice those cabbage leaves into ribbons before I toss them into my salad bowl.

Red Russian Kale Leaves Add More Sweetness to a Homemade Salad

The leaves of this kale variety are soft and a little bit sweeter than other varieties. Plus, I love how the frilly-edged leaves look next to the other ingredients in my salad bowl. Between the cabbage and the kale, you've already got so many of your nutritional needs covered.

If you're growing dinosaur kale instead, check out this delicious kale salad recipe.

How to Grow Kale at Home

Like Napa cabbage, kale grows best when it's cool out, though you can actually keep kale plants alive for a couple years in your garden. Explore our complete guide to growing kale.

It takes 50 to 55 days from planting before you can begin harvesting kale leaves. Again, start with the older outer leaves. These will be those leaves closest to the base of the plant as kale, like cabbage, grows from the center out. Make sure not to take too many leaves from one plant because the plant needs those for photosynthesis. I like to take a couple leaves from each plant and rotate which plants I harvest from for my daily salads—this way, each plant has time to recover before its leaves fill more salad bowls. Explore more on how to harvest kale.

I like to cut kale into smaller pieces but leave the stems on for some added crunch.

A Colorful Mix of Lettuce Leaves and Baby Spinach Leaves Add Variety to Homemade Salad

Let's add flavor and variety to our salad bowl with a mix of small leafy greens.

If you're sick of iceberg lettuce and spring mixes from the store, I can't wait for you to try fresh, homegrown lettuces. There are dozens of varieties of plants in the lettuce family alone for you to explore, including escarole, little gem, buttercrunch, oak leaf, and bibb lettuces.

You can also experiment with flavor by growing plants that aren't technically lettuce but that grow very similarly, like spinach, arugula, mizuna, and purple mustard. Try growing red and purple varieties of leafy greens so your salad bowl is as beautiful as it is tasty.

How to Grow Lettuce at Home

Most lettuce grows best in cool weather, but there are tons of leafy greens that can stand warmer temps too. Check out our complete salad garden guide to learn how to set up, plant, and tend your lettuce plants.

My favorite thing about growing these salad plants is you can mix up all the different seeds you want to grow and then just scatter them over the soil. This way, you can grow lots of different varieties at once! If you want to be more strategic, you can interplant bunches of smaller plants throughout your garden beds.

When you bring your strainer out to harvest all your delicious leaves, make sure to harvest from the outside of the plant and to only take a couple leaves from several different plants. Here's more on how to harvest lettuce leaves.

How to Grow Spinach at Home

Spinach is super easy to grow and will bring a ton of nutritional benefits to your salad. I recommend harvesting spinach leaves while they're still "baby-size" for salads. Here's your guide to growing spinach from seed.

The Best Containers for Growing Lettuce and Spinach

Kale and cabbage have deeper roots that do best when given the full depth of a raised garden bed to dig into, but lettuce plants and spinach plants have shallower roots systems. That means you have much more flexibility where you can grow your own smaller leafy greens. You can even grow lettuce in containers indoors or on a patio. Check out our recommendations for growing your own salad garden in a small container or in a large rolling planter.

Parsley Makes Homemade Salads Feel Gourmet

Don't feel you can only add lettuce to a salad! I love adding curly parsley to salads for a little additional crunch. The extra visual interest from having these frilly little leaves in your bowl will make your salad feel gourmet for sure. Sometimes, to shake things up, I add dill instead of parsley—they're from the same family but have totally different tastes.

How to Grow Parsley at Home

Here's your guide to growing this low-maintenance herb.

Cutting Celery Adds an Extra Crunch to Homemade Salads

This is not your grocery-store celery. The ribs of cutting celery add a great crunch to salads; they’re even delicious on their own. You can also eat the leaves, which are filled with nutrients and taste a bit like parsley. 

How to Grow Cutting Celery at Home

Cutting celery is usually easier to grow than celery varieties grown for their stalks. You can harvest leaves and stalks as soon as the plant has become established. Cut 3/4 way down the stems to harvest, and the plant will continue growing.

Radishes Add Some Peppery Flavor to Your Homemade Salad

I love tossing some cute little French breakfast radishes into my salads. Believe it or not, you can actually eat the tap root and the radish leaves—just chop them up!

How to Grow Radishes at Home

If you're a beginner gardener, French breakfast radishes are a great intro plant, and they're ready to harvest in just 45 days. Check out our tips for growing French breakfast radishes.

Chives Are the Perfect Garnish for a Gourmet Salad

We're going to finish our salad bowl up with one of my salad favorites, chives, to add a little bit of oniony flavor. Chives, like many other things from the garden, are at their most flavorful when they're freshly harvested. Not only can you toss chopped stems onto salads, you can even make a vinaigrette from chives blossoms to use as your dressing.

How to Grow Chives at Home

Chives are super easy to grow. You could even keep a pot of chives in your kitchen windowsill. Here's how to take care of chives.

Edible Flowers Add a Fun Twist to Your Homemade Salad

And for the crowning salad jewel, let's put some edible flowers in your salad bowl. My favorite edible flowers are pansies, but you can also use marigolds, nasturtiums, or a number of other flowers. I like to break them up for a little color.

Learn more about edible flowers here.

How to Make Salad Dressing to Compliment Your Garden-Fresh Picks

My favorite simple salad dressing with olive oil involves just five ingredients. Add more or less of the following ingredients based on your personal preference:

• EVOO
• honey
• apple cider vinegar
• garden-fresh thyme
• sea salt

If you'd like to add more toppings to your gourmet salad, some of my favorites are:

• roasted pumpkin seeds
• feta cheese
• grilled chicken
• flatbread

Not everyone is as big of a fan of cabbage as I am, but I love an Asian-inspired salad with cabbage leaves, almonds, mandarin orange slices, and sesame seeds, plus a dressing of liquid aminos and sesame oil.

There are so many options for a gourmet salad at home, it's easy to make it your own!

No More Boring, Wilted Salads

Picture yourself taking a salad spinner or a strainer out into the garden and cutting your own organic lettuce for a gourmet salad. You're one step closer to making that happen! So here's to growing and eating more delicious salads!