Hold the lettuce

How many times have you packed a salad full of leafy greens in your lunchbox only to discover a soggy mess at lunchtime, or decide that you needed something more substantial to satisfy your hunger? Indexed blog Food52 reminds us that there is a “whole world of lettuce-less salads out there, and they’re particularly exciting in spring. Crunchy, spear-able vegetables like snap peas and asparagus can be blanched at home, and dressing them ahead of time won’t lead to wilting.” It can be difficult to break out of the lettuce mindset, so Food52 guides you to some of their favorites:

• New potato and pea salad with mustard and mint
• Shaved asparagus and mint salad
• Radish salad with curry-orange dressing
• Creamy crunchy cucumber avocado salad
• Shaved asparagus with burrata, radish, and cucumber

But you don’t have to stop there. The EYB Library has thousands of leaf-free salads, featuring everything from Adzuki beans to zucchini. Here are a handful of the most popular lettuce-free salads available online in the EYB Library.

• Garlicky sesame-cured broccoli salad by Melissa Clark
• Long-bean salad with roasted peanuts by Naomi Duguid
• Fennel and blood orange salad by Deb Perelman
• Quinoa salad with dried Iranian lime by Yottam Ottolenghi
• Roasted sweet potatoes with spicy feta-olive salad by Luisa Weiss
• Watermelon, feta and black olive salad by Nigella Lawson
• Honey and harissa farro salad by Deb Perelman