Salads

French vegetable salad recipes and Baltic salad recipes, fresh, colorful, and honestly some of the easiest things you can put on the table.

Growing up, my grandmother always had several salads on the table at once. Red radishes in sour cream, sliced cucumber, fresh tomato, whatever came in from the garden that day. All of it dressed simply and served alongside open-faced sandwiches on rye.

My French mother-in-law did the same thing. Creamy cucumbers before the main meal, grated carrots with lemon dressing, a shredded cabbage salad just enough to wake up your appetite before the main arrived.

A few small colorful bowls make the whole table look like you really thought about it. And they take about ten minutes.

You’ll find French salad recipes and Baltic vegetable salads here, raw and dressed, and roasted vegetable salads too with more of those on the way. Great for an aukstais galds (the Latvian version of a smorgasbord, where everything comes out at once and the table does the talking), good for a potluck, and just as easy on a regular Tuesday night. To see how these salads fit into a bigger meal, how the Baltic table is set and how a French meal flows are good places to start.