Top 13 Best Salad Cookbooks
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Why do we need to own the best salad cookbook when salads are the easiest dishes you can prepare? How to avoid the boredom of eating salad with only simple and common ingredients?
When the go-green style is trending these days, I do think a salad cookbook is an excellent investment to spend money on. Let’s discover this simple dish but contains many secrets by jumping in my article!
Why Do We Need A Salad Cookbook?
I know that salad is one of the most quite most straightforward dishes to make. However, why don’t we level up this daily dish to the restaurant level with some excellent but straightforward recipes? Here are some reasons why a salad cookbook is a must-to-have.
1. Various Recipes
First and foremost, salad is the most popular dish on many occasions. Whether you eat alone or in 20-30 people gathering, salad is indispensable. Because of its frequency, are you sometimes fed up with eating the same salad day by day?
If your answer is yes, the best salad cookbook is your savior. With this salad cookbook, you’ll have plenty of salad recipes for you to choose from. Whether you need the time-saving one for your small family or a complicated recipe for the party, an excellent salad cookbook will be of great help.
2. Qualified Recipes
Moreover, in these books, you will discover some ingredients that you have not thought about. You can access some discrete recipe that professional chefs spend years to conduct. Cooking is not an easy thing; you have to practice every day to gain experience. Therefore, why don’t we shorten the time by these guided books?
3. Positive Impact on Your Health
It is clear that we pay a large amount of money on some time-consuming and expensive dishes such as foie gras, orange sauce duck, etc. Although their nutrition contents tend to be higher than salad, we rarely eat them.
Hence, I think it would better to invest in salad- an indispensable daily dish. Step by step, a salad cookbook will help you easily make impressive salad dishes that considerably improve your health.
Which Are The Best Salad Cookbooks That You Have To Own?
If you are looking for a well-explained cookbook with great salad recipes, Food52 60 New Ways Salad Cookbook is the right choice. If you are into recipes from all around the world, look at Hetty McKinnon’s book.
I have listed the top 12 best salad cookbooks with some crucial features. Don’t hesitate to look at them.
- Best Overall: Food52 Mighty Salads Cookbook
“Variety salad styles, adaptive to many occasions, well-designed cover book, very creative recipes. ” - Best Budget: Simple Salad Salad Cookbook
“Easy to make, up to 100 recipes; recipes are categorized based on dietary, detailed recipes with alternative ingredients .” - Best for Vegetarians: 365 Days Of Salad Recipes Salad Cookbook
“Plant-based dishes, detailed instructions, suitable for many occasions, written by a well-known author.” - Best Seasonal: Mandy’s Gourmet Salad Salad Cookbook
“Recently published, vivid images, eye-catching decoration, using seasonal ingredients.” - Best for Weight Loss: Bowls Salad Cookbook
“From the famous TV show, helpful in control calories, written by numerous authors, exciting approaches. ” - Best for Experienced Home Cooks: Seriously Good Salads Salad Cookbook
“High in protein, needs lots of effort and time, detailed and easy-to-understand recipes.” - Best for Dairy-free Dishes: Salad Samurai Salad Cookbook
“Detailed instructions, require basic skills, variety in ingredients, offer digital courses online.” - Best Giftable: Williams-Sonoma Salad Of The Day Salad Cookbook
“Informative lessons about nutrients, perfect for gifting, beautiful pictures to illustrate.” - Best for Fruit Salads: BookSumo Press Easy Fruit Salad Salad Cookbook
“Using fruits as the main ingredients, serve as main dishes or desserts, beautiful decoration, good to your health.” - Best with Plant-Based Recipes: Neighborhood Hearty Salad Cookbook
“Easy-to-follow recipes, recipes from all around the world, detailed explanations, creative combinations.” - Best for Dinner: The Dinner Salad Cookbook
“Require a lot of ingredients, suitable for family meals, quiet complex, take about 35 minutes to complete the salad.”
Best Salad Cookbooks Comparison Chart
Take a glance at the top 12 best salad cookbooks’ main features to have a quick comparison between them.
Top 13 Best Salad Cookbooks Detailed Reviews
Let’s have a deeper understanding of my top 13 best salad cookbooks. Each cookbook has a different focus; read the reviews to see which one is most suitable for you.
1. Food52 Mighty Salads Salad Cookbook
(Best Overall)
This product is one of the most wide-spread salad cookbooks on the market these days. Nothing can be more attractive and tastier than salads with shrimp radicchios, bacon and white beans, seasoning with charred lemon.
You will find a collection of sixty delicious recipes and many tips and tricks to improve your old homemade salads. You don’t have to give up on your old grandma’s salad recipe. You can modify and level up these dishes to be more modern but remain their old days’ taste.
Key features:
- Spreads undiscovered recipes
- Different style of menus
- Attractive book cover
- Suitable for many occasions
Pros
- Beautiful photos
- Healthy ingredients
- Include some tips to transform your old recipes
- Encourage healthy eating habits
Cons
- Some customers feel that the salad is too heavy.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs |
| Number of recipes | 60 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Dinner salads |
| Format available | Hardcover, Kindle |
2. Simple Salad Cookbook
(Best Budget)
Are you a student or worker with a hectic schedule? I know that getting up early in the morning to prepare your lunch is a nightmare. With this masterpiece, you just need to spend less than 10 minutes each morning to make a healthy and fresh salad.
This book provides you with 100 quick-made recipes. All the recipes are labeled with dietary preferences so that you can quickly skim to take the most suitable recipe. Moreover, the author has carefully included substitutions for some hard-to-find ingredients. I find this feature is fantastic for you if you don’t have much time for groceries.
Key features:
- Easy cooking techniques
- Variety of ingredients
- Include 100 recipes
- Both animal and plant-based dishes
Pros
- Take less than 10 minutes to make
- Each recipe is labeled with dietary preferences.
- Easy-to-find ingredients
- Suitable for people who have a busy life
Cons
- Not for people who prefer great salads.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Johanna Marie Mirpuri |
| Number of recipes | 100 recipes |
| Image included | No |
| Prioritize | Quick-made salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
3. 365 Days Of Salad Recipes Salad Cookbook
(Best for Vegetarians)
This book contains 365 plant-based dishes, suitable for people who desire to follow green-eating habit. You can also learn some nutrients basics from vegetables and turn them into a full energy source.
One thing that makes this book a must-read one is a variety of methods. This book teaches you how to make food with an oven, stove, and also a microwave. Among 365 recipes, green mango salad is my go-to dish. It is easy to make; the blend between the lightly sweet and acid of mango with the mint leaf’s spice makes it mouth-melting.
The barbecue salad with a spice combination is also enjoyable. It is perfect for a BBQ friends gathering. Do you think it’s a good idea to hold a plant-based BBQ sometimes, don’t you?
Last but not least, this book was written by Emma Katie. She is called the queen of taste. Her best-selling collection includes many books, and the most popular is “Clean eating recipes.”
Key features:
- 365 recipes
- Simple techniques
- For people who pursue a healthy life
- Beginner level
Pros
- Suitable for vegetarians
- Detailed instructions
- Encourage green-eating habit
- For family and party use
- From well-known author
Cons
- Don’t have new recipes since it was published in 2014
- Don’t include photos.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Emma Katie |
| Number of recipes | 365 recipes |
| Image included | No |
| Prioritize | Vegetarian salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
4. Mandy’s Gourmet Salad Salad Cookbook
(Best Seasonal)
Mandy took inspiration from different countries, but she mainly uses local ingredients. Therefore, if you like using seasonal ingredients, this book is a perfect choice. It contains 12 monthly recipes, using organic and the best ingredients of each month to make a mouth-melting salad.
Mandy has made an admirable step from a 3 feet salad counter to eight huge locations in Montreal today. From all that experience, she brought us Mandy’s Gourmet Salad Cookbook.
You can find delicious salad recipes and some smoothies and sweets from Mandy and his sister- Rebecca. Recipes in this book come with vibrant images and detailed step-to-step instructions.
I ensure that this book will perfectly fit your summer parties. You can use many colorful vegetables with different textures in her recipes, which I believe will create unique salad bowls.
Key features:
- Globally inspired recipes
- Using seasonal ingredients
- Come with images
- Delicious dressings
Pros
- Available in both versions: paper book and e-book
- Recently published
- Home-cook friendly
- Vivid photos
Cons
- Quite heavy to hold
- Require a lot of ingredients for one recipe
Product Specifications:
| Author | Mandy and Rebecca Wolfe |
| Number of recipes | Not mentioned |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Seasonal salads |
| Format available | Kindle, Hardcover |
5. Bowls Salad Cookbook
(Best for Weight Loss)
This book comes from America’s Test Kitchen, one of the most popular TV shows. It includes recipes from sixty well-known chefs in Boston and Massachusetts. This book satisfies me with its excellent recipes and good quality of papers and images.
The authors have standardized all the recipes in two-serving dishes, but you can quickly multiply it if you have prepared more people. Not to mention, you can find the number of calories next to each recipe. This feature enables you to easier control your diet.
Just by a glance at the photo, you can already know the dish’s main ingredients. Even you are a vegetarian, vegans, Keto diet follower, you can make a masterpiece with this salad cookbook.
Key features:
- Suitable for many diets
- Informative recipes
- Calories number indicated in the recipes
- Written by trustable chefs.
Pros
- Authentic recipes that last for generations
- Give out the right results.
- Outstanding flavors
- Vivid images
Cons
- Relatively easy to get dusty. You should take a dush cover to protect your book.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Julia Collin Davison, Jack Bishop, Lisa McManus, Bryan Roof, Dan Souza, and others |
| Number of recipes | 75 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Variety |
| Format available | Hardcover, Kindle |
6. Seriously Good Salads Salad Cookbook
(Best for Experienced Home Cooks)
If you seek a salad recipe with extra protein, you should probably take a look at this book. I should mention before that this book does not provide you with easy-to-make and quickly prepared salad recipes.
For me, this book is suitable for people who have specific skills and knowledge in culinary as their recipes are quite complicated, and much information is provided. It will be overwhelming for people who have just started cooking.
Salad is not just about vegetables, greens, and fruits; it can also contain meat, seafood, cheese, and so on. Due to this demand, this book gives you opportunities to expand your knowledge about the combination.
You don’t have to worry about a tiring afternoon because of the lack of protein at lunch. You can find many recipes with sufficient nutritional needs by mixing meat-based and plant-based ingredients.
Your ordinary salad will turn into a complete lunch box that satisfies your energy needs and also your tasting buds.
Key features:
- Variety of ingredients
- All of the most popular kinds of salads included
- Comprehensive guide
- Cover your salads with toppings
Pros
- Can turn your salad into a full lunch meal
- A significant number of recipes
- Different recipes to adapt to four seasons
- Highly adaptive to modern taste
Cons
- You will need to prepare a lot of ingredients, including some hard-to-find veggies.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Nicky Corbishley |
| Number of recipes | 75 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Gourmet salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
7. Salad Samurai Salad Cookbook
(Best for Dairy-Free Dishes)
This book is very well structured. The introduction contains some tips to prepare some primary ingredients and some guidelines on making dressings, dips, marinades, and salsas.
The main section covers many recipes for you to choose from appetizers to the main dish with fish, meat, or even vegetarian salads.
This book is a useful assistant for making vegetarian and dairy-free dishes using various ingredients and seasonal products. The author has carefully categories them into four seasons so that you can have a wide range of appropriate choices for each kind of weather.
Key features:
- Offer you 100 meatless recipes.
- Divide recipes into four seasons
- Large varieties of dressings
- Engaging, informative text
Pros
- From essential to complicated recipes
- Perfect for gifting
- Well-written recipes
- Based on real-life experience
Cons
- The size of the photos is relatively small.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Terry Hope Romero |
| Number of recipes | 100 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Meatless and Dairy-free salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
8. BookSumo Press Easy Fruit Salad Cookbook
(Best for Fruit Salads)
Unlike other mentioned cookbooks, BookSumo Press Easy Fruit Salad Cookbook choose fruits to focus on. Fruits are an indispensable part of summer. It is a waste not to use this ingredient as the inspiration for salad. You can pick a recipe from this book for your detox day!
You love salad and also fruits, so combining the two just seems to be a good idea. Honestly, fruit salad is the dish that you just out all your fruits you leaf in the fridge, and it will always taste delicious. There are many fruit salads in the book for you to kick it up for a notch.
With a variety of foods from European products to Tropical, you will never get bored with this.
Key features:
- Provide a lot of high-quality pictures
- Exact timing
- Easy-to-remember recipes
- Well-constructed content
Pros
- Sleek design with beautiful pictures
- Suitable for detox menus
- Good for your skin
- Includes a variety of recipes to choose from, including desserts
Cons
- No nutritional information
- Some fruits are difficult to buy
Product Specifications:
| Author | BookSumo Press |
| Number of recipes | 50 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Fruit salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
9. Williams-Sonoma Salad Of The Day Salad Cookbook
(Best Giftable)
You might feel this book is quite familiar; this book is the updated version of the 2012 best-selling cookbook- Williams-Sonoma Salad of the Day. It comes with 90 new recipes and more visual images.
This book offers 365 incredibly simple recipes to turn a salad into a complete, healthy, and balanced meal, especially for gourmets. Salad for a picnic, for lunch at your office, lunch with friends, or dinner is ready in 5 minutes.
There is something for everyone, from vegetable salads to meat or fish salads. Above all, the salads range from red onions, fried eggs, and eggplant. Each has a unique touch of Georgeanna Brennand in the ingredients, texture, or sauces.
Some examples to make your palate: Medjool carrot and kale salad, squid salad with chickpeas, watermelon tabbouleh, ravioli salad, red bean salad with blueberries, black olive, and squid salad.
Key features:
- An excellent choice for gifting
- For all year use
- From eminent chef
- Beautiful high-quality illustration pictures
Pros
- From easy to complicate recipes
- Helpful tricks and tips
- Very detailed instruction
- Elegant decorative ideas
Cons
- Not exact cooking time
- The number of servings depends on each recipe. You should check this feature carefully before preparing ingredients
Product Specifications:
| Author | Georgeanna Brennand |
| Number of recipes | 365 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Gourmet salads |
| Format available | Hardcover, Kindle |
10. Neighborhood Hearty Salad Cookbook
(Best with Plant-Based Recipes)
This book is a part of the Simple Vegetable-packed collection. There is a whole community that took part in the conduction of this book.
Therefore, Neighborhood Hearty Salad Cookbook has been filled with a touch of people worldwide: Asia, Australia, Brooklyn, France, and many other countries.
Using vegetables, herbs, nuts, grains, and spices to create a combination, your salad will no longer be a bland dish that makes people deny. You will see many combinations of plant-based ingredients such as Spinach, Pinto Beans with sweet ingredients like yogurt, butter, milk, etc.
About its author, Hetty McKinnon is a home cook with a strong interest in vegetables. That’s why her books are straightforward to understand. Since Hetty is an unprofessional chef, she comprehends which difficulty that the readers might encounter. Therefore, these issues are precisely explained and solved in the book.
Key features:
- Easy-to-follow recipes
- Recipes from all around the world
- Detailed explanations
- Creative combinations
Pros
- A wide range from traditional to modern dishes
- Nice and attractive decoration
- Many tips included
- Easy to understand
Cons
- Not well organized
Product Specifications:
| Author | Hetty McKinnon |
| Number of recipes | N/A |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Home and abroad plant-based salads |
| Format available | Paperback |
11. Stacey Printz The Best 50 Salad Dressing Salad Cookbook
Fifty recipes to change your salad eating habit! This book was published in 1999, but not doesn’t go outdated. All of the recipes in the books are still popular and indispensable dishes in her house.
Honestly, these recipes are just essential and easy-to-make products. I was not impressed with the flavors it brings. For a learner, this salad cookbook is OK, but for salad addicts, this book doesn’t meet their expectations.
Key features:
- Basic recipes
- Easy-to-find ingredients
- Ideal for beginners
- Comes with hardcover
Pros
- Authentic recipes that last for generations
- Give out the right results.
- Can take advantages of ingredient waste as you can easily replace ingredients you have for others, leaving things in your fridge
- Quick meal preparation
Cons
- Not for British cook
- No illustrated photos
Product Specifications:
| Author | Stacey Printz |
| Number of recipes | 50 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Homemade salad and dressings |
| Format available | Hardcover, Paperback |
12. The Dinner Salad Cookbook
(Best for Dinner)
Dinner is the most important meal for any family. It is time for all the family members to gather and bond the relationship. Therefore, a good salad will make this time more enjoyable.
The Dinner Salad Cookbook provides you with 100 easy-to-make and detailed recipes of salad. There is a wide range of options, from vegetarian dishes, seafood-based salads to Asian recipes.
It takes you approximately 35 minutes (or less) to make the best salad ever for your family. You need to pay attention that all the recipes in this book are mainly made for family dinner. I will not recommend this option if you have the intention to make a small portion.
Key features:
- Unique attached paring sauces
- Versatile for different salad styles
- Ideal gifting option
- Specialized in some particular cuisines.
Pros
- Great highlights
- Easy-to-understand guidelines
- Unique sauce recipe
- A good dose of seasonal elements
Cons
- No calories information was included.
Product Specifications:
| Author | Nicole Pavlovsky |
| Number of recipes | 100 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | Dinner salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
13. Salad Love Salad Cookbook
Cooking at home allows you to share good meals with family or friends and eat healthy and balanced food. Why don’t you start it now with Salad Love Salad Cookbook?
From Oak-Smoked Cheddar, delicious roasted vegetables and Dried Cranberries, melon salad with mint, spring rolls, or Lebanese farouche, discover 76 recipes of complete salads, salty and sweet, vegetarian or not.
Moreover, technical pages give you all the secrets to carve vegetables and prepare accompanying sauces. Tips and tricks will help you proudly announce: “I made it myself!”.
Key features:
- 260 hearty recipes
- 280 full-color photographs
- Easy-to-follow recipes
Pros
- From famous author
- Including images for easy making salads
- Help you create vibrant, plant-based meals
- A good chance to explore inspired salads
Cons
- Not very suitable for beginners since most of the recipes are for gourmet dishes
Product Specifications:
| Author | David Bez |
| Number of recipes | 260 recipes |
| Image included | Yes |
| Prioritize | All kinds of salads |
| Format available | Paperback, Kindle |
How To Find The Best Salad Cookbooks?
Don’t underrate the importance of salad because they take don’t so much effort to make. Let’s see what features we should take a look at while purchasing the best salad cookbook.
1. The Level of Difficulty
If you’re a newbie in the kitchen, choose the book with simple recipes and a transparent context. This is because cookbooks for advanced levels have some skills that can create a big challenge for you.
Don’t start with the mountain at the beginning but with some small stones to practice. While you get familiar with these techniques and terminologies, go for the more challenging.
2. Pictures
Yes, having pictures is one of the most crucial factors of a cookbook. Imagine that you have a colorful and high-quality picture. Will you have more motivation to get started? Not to mention, good pictures can help you better understand the recipe and get on the right way to success.
3. Dietary Classification
Some cookbooks use only to use vegetables as ingredients, which perfectly suits vegan. Some of them specialize in fruit salad, but diabetic patients have struggled with some particular fruits such as apple, pear, etc. Therefore, check this feature carefully to better adapt to not only yourself but other family members.
4. Author and Ranking
There are thousands of salad cookbooks on the market, but not all of them have standard quality content. A small tip for you: search for the author’s name on Google and see their profiles. If it is a trusted author, their names are listed in many posts, and there are also many citations of their recipes on gastronomy magazines.
How To Use The Book In The Best Way?
Here is some advice for you to better enjoy your salad cookbooks.
1. Don’t overwhelm yourself with many books.
Each book has a unique cooking style with different skills and mindsets. If you desire to try recipes from different within a short period, it’s quite challenging, and the result will not be as good as expected.
Just focus on one book to master the techniques and rules by one chosen author, then try the next one.
2. Review after each time cooking
Although you follow exactly what is told in the book, you get a complete dish or just a salad bowl for the bin. That’s normal. The theory is different from practice. By each time tempting, you will have one more experience and tip for yourself.
If you have watched Harry Potter, you would remember in the Half-Blood Prince episode, Severus Shape had modified many chemical formulas in Portions class to make it perfect. So now, you see, just keep practicing and modifying till you find the best recipes. Don’t forget to prepare a pen and a highlight to note in the book.
3. Get reviews from as many people as possible.
You like your salad; it doesn’t mean that the dish is delicious. Get the review from your family, your friends to improve your salad’s taste. Not to mention, the recipe in the book is perfect for the chef who wrote it, not your family. Hence, listen to their reviews and add a little more salt or less lemongrass to make it suitable for your loved ones.
FAQs
Here are some prevalent issues you might wondering when purchasing salad cookbooks. Let jump into it!
My Top Pick
My choice will go to Mighty Salads Salad Cookbook. When I first purchased, I was just quite into this book’s cover. It has an elegant design; the dish on the cover is tasty. I didn’t think much about the content inside. And when it came to my house, it doesn’t let me down.
I am impressed by its illustrated pictures coming with easy-to-understand recipes. The seasonings recipes are impressive. Thanks to it, I have gained experience and enrich my culinary knowledge.
Salad is an indispensable part of our daily life. I am thrilled that not only me but my children and my husband love these salad recipes; we can finally create a healthy eating habit.
Thank you for reading my article. Stay tuned for the next reviews.
