A Spoon Salad Is The Practical Way To Get Flavor In Every Bite

By this point, it's no secret that TikTok is the new haven for foodies from around the globe. All it takes is for one video to gain traction, and suddenly everyone is eating salad made from a single cucumber. Or, perhaps you wowed your friends at your last bonfire by making a savory build-your-own s'more bar. Whether you love these trends, or love rolling your eyes at them, it seems TikTok is coming at us with yet another potentially life-changing meal hack: tasty and versatile spoon salads.

Before somebody makes the obvious dad joke, this isn't a salad made of spoons. Rather, it's a salad with ingredients chopped superfine so you can eat it with a spoon, ensuring that each bite is packed full of flavor. Instead of stabbing giant pieces of watery romaine with a fork, you can scoop up a delectable mélange of minced veggies, crushed nuts, and legumes evenly coated in tangy dressing.

Spoon salads are also excellent make-ahead meals, especially if you love chewy or fibrous ingredients like legumes, chickpeas, and lentils, or cruciferous broccoli and kale. Making your salad the night before allows the dressing to fully sink into your veggies, intensifying flavors and lightly softening hard ingredients to a more toothsome texture. If you're looking for an alternative to the salmon-avocado poke bowl you've been making on repeat, spoon salads may be just what you need.

Though most spoon salads contain hearty ingredients like cauliflower, farro, and kale, you can also include more tender ingredients like fresh herbs and tomatoes — it's all a matter of when you plan to eat. If you're making a salad to enjoy right away, feel free to use delicate iceberg lettuce, berries, and cucumber. However, if you're meal-prepping, it's best to stick to cruciferous vegetables, whole grains, and root vegetables like carrots or radishes to prevent creating a soggy salad.

Not sure where to start? Try making your favorite regular salad into a spoon salad simply by chopping the ingredients finer than usual. Everything should be just a little bit larger than a mince cut. For instance, if you love a fresh green bean and tomato panzanella, turn it into a spoon salad by slicing the green beans into bite-size sections and cutting the toasted bread into a quarter of its usual size. If your bites fit easily on a spoon, you're doing it right.

Once you have the hang of it, try to experiment. We suggest choosing a grain, a leafy green, and at least two hearty veggies, then select add-ins like nuts and seeds, herbs, and fruit or cheese. Citrus-based vinaigrettes go well with almost every flavor profile. For example, you might start with a quinoa base, add in some curly kale, broccoli, diced radishes, slivered almonds, and pomegranate arils. Dress with a lemon-garlic vinaigrette to bring all the flavors together.