Why do restaurant salads taste so much better than any salad I try to make at home, even if I use the restaurant’s dressing?
In: Other
Simple answer: Our produce is probably fresher. In my area, the produce I get for my restaurant will last weeks in my walk in. Produce I have to purchase between delivery last days at most.
We get a 3 lb. bag of baby spinach at our local warehouse store every three to four weeks to use at home. Produce from grocery stores might last a week.
Commerical produce is significantly fresher!
And get your lettuce as dry as possible.
If you tell me exactly what your salad is missing, I might be able to give you a suggestion or two.
The produce is different. I worked at a restaurant that had fresh produce trucked in every Morning from a nearby farm. It’s quite literally a different product than the cheaper stuff from the grocery store thats been on trucks for days where they riped on the way as opposed to something that was still in the ground not to long ago.
They dont use ready made dressings in proper places. It’s made from fresh ingredients on the spot.
Here is a great secret resepy, so don’t tell anyone.
Make this dressing:
+ 1. Virgin olive oil (cold pressed)
+ 2. Balsamic vinegar
+ 3. Honey
+ 4. Mustard
Put only little balsamic vinegar. Mix these 4 ingredients and you will have best salad dressing ever. Try it out to get the ratios best for your taste.
Freshness and exectution I belive are the 2 biggest factors imo.
Freshness some one already mentioned produce from restaurants is just better from the supplyer very true. And to add a extra tip if you have black pepper, lemon or parmesan in the recipie make sure there freshly cracked pepper corns, freshly squeezed lemons and freshly shaved parmigian.
Also the restaurants sauce they sell to match there salad won’t be as good cause I guarentee you the difference is the bottle has the pepper lemmon or parm already in it while when they server it they make it without and keep those as fresh finishing touches.
Execution is key as well restaurants want to server you as quick as possible so they have lots of things on the ready. Lettuce being the most important one fresh cut washed and dried in the fridge again the air in the fridge is dry and dries out the leaves further and brown paper towels is king. Chilled plate another good trick keeps the lettuce colder when it gets to the table.
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Just because no one has mentioned it yet: chilled plates? Some nicer restaurants will keep stacks of plates in the fridge, then dry off the condensation when they pull them out for your order. Someone mentioned wet lettuce diluting your dressing, and to some degree, the condensation will do the same thing. A chilled plate will keep your veggies cooler and crisper for longer, so the last bite tastes as good as the first.
High end restaurants will source greens and veggies from local growers. Fresher and will taste better. Not from big farms and bulk distributors.
And in their dressing lots of salt, butter and oil.
Couple reasons why our salad might taste better:
1. We get delivery every other day. We get product that will last us potentially 2 days.
2. Over tossing and letting the greens sit in the dressing too long causes it to wilt and not be crunchy anymore. This causes the quality to go down a lot.
3. Salt.
4. The cooks in the restaurant I use to work at are trained intensely to make sure that EVERYTHING they put out of the kitchen is perfect. Our chef/owner would rather have us make a salad 5 times and be perfect than send out a shitty salad. Yes, the wait time will be longer, but we usually send them a complimentary item to make up for the wait time.
Salt, pepper, use a giant metal or glass mixing bowl and mix everything together. You need a huge bowl to be able to mix the salad well enough to have that perfect dressing coat.
I know what you mean! Applebee’s side salad with ranch is my favorite, and I’m not able to duplicate it at home. The texture, the crunch, the super thick creamy dressing. I stop and grab one all the time, and it’s under $4.
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