Why It's Better To Toss Salad With Your Hands Instead Of Tongs

Salad dressing is the difference between a sad desk lunch and a not-bad desk lunch. There's good reason why the salad at your favorite restaurant always tastes better than the ones you toss together at home in the morning. Instead of drowning your fresh veggies in the store-bought stuff, consider a quick and simple homemade dressing, like Ina Garten's easy lemon vinaigrette. Or, try giving your Caesar salad a spicy upgrade with a sriracha dressing. Nothing tops a salad tossed in homemade dressing, and a solid salad dressing is all about the right ratio, good ingredients, and more importantly, practiced technique.

Next time you're planning to start dinner with some fresh greens, skip the expensive wooden salad tongs and use your hands instead. Tossing your salad with your hands ensures no leaf goes unflavored, plus the hands-on approach protects greens from damage and bruising. It's a simple trick that takes flavor to the next level, and even the young Judy Garland's salad recipe uses the hand-mixing method for evenly-dressed greens.

There's nothing worse than a bland salad, but just because your salad is dressed doesn't mean it's dressed to impress. A lackluster salad usually has bad dressing distribution. It's either concentrated on a few lucky leaves at the top or has sunk in a sad pool at the bottom of the bowl. Not to mention, the unappetizing appearance and texture of pitiful, tattered greens.

A crispy, flavorful salad begins by saying so long to salad tongs. After giving salad a good drizzle and seasoning greens with salt and pepper (an essential and often overlooked step), use both hands to coat every leaf with dressing and evenly incorporate the condiments. To keep fragile greens like lettuce fresh and firm, avoid tossing your salad too much. Next time you decide to stay in and dine on the salad, soda, and french fry combo, remember that condiment application is everything and properly toss your salad.