Trattoria Garden Salad with Shake-in-a-Jar Red Wine Vinaigrette

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

The house salad that shows up beside every plate of pasta in a good Italian-American dining room — cold, crackly-dry greens, sweet tomato, sharp red onion, and a red wine vinaigrette you shake together in a jar in ninety seconds. The whole recipe hinges on two things: a 3:1 oil-to-vinegar ratio with mustard to hold it together, and greens dried so thoroughly the dressing has nowhere to slide off to. Learn the ratio once and you'll never buy bottled dressing again.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 small garlic clove, grated on a microplane
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano, crumbled between your fingers
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp honey or sugar
• 9 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 large head romaine hearts (about 8 oz), or 6 cups mixed sturdy greens
• 3 cups escarole or radicchio leaves, torn
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 medium red onion, sliced paper-thin
• 1 small English cucumber, quartered lengthwise and sliced
• 1 medium carrot, shaved into ribbons with a peeler
• 1/3 cup pepperoncini, drained and sliced
• 1/4 cup pitted Kalamata or Castelvetrano olives, torn

• 1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• Flaky sea salt
• Coarsely cracked black pepper

Instructions

1. Soak the sliced red onion in a small bowl of ice water for 10 minutes while you prep everything else. This pulls out the harsh sulfur bite and leaves it crisp and sweet. Drain well and pat dry on a paper towel.
2. Make the vinaigrette: in a clean jar with a tight lid, combine the red wine vinegar, Dijon, grated garlic, crumbled oregano, kosher salt, black pepper, and honey. Screw on the lid and shake for 10 seconds to dissolve the salt — do this BEFORE adding oil, since salt won't dissolve in fat.
3. Add all 9 tablespoons of olive oil to the jar. That is the 3:1 ratio (3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar) — memorize it and you can scale it forever. Seal and shake hard for 30 full seconds. The mustard will grab the oil and vinegar together and the dressing will turn opaque and slightly thick. Set aside at room temperature.
4. Now dry the greens like you mean it. Tear the romaine and escarole into bite-size pieces, wash in a big bowl of cold water, then lift them out leaving the grit behind. Spin in a salad spinner in two small batches rather than one crowded one — 20 seconds per batch, pour off the water, spin again.
5. Lay the spun greens on a clean kitchen towel, roll the towel loosely into a log, and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes (up to 4 hours). This finishes the drying and makes the leaves genuinely cold and snappy. Wet greens are the single reason home salads taste watery and limp.
6. Pat the tomatoes, cucumber, and pepperoncini dry with paper towels too — any surface water dilutes the dressing on contact.
7. Ten minutes before serving, chill your serving bowl in the freezer. Combine the dry greens, drained onion, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot ribbons, pepperoncini, and olives in a large wide mixing bowl.
8. Shake the jar again for 5 seconds, then drizzle about half the vinaigrette (roughly 1/4 cup) down the inside wall of the bowl, not directly onto the leaves. Toss with your hands or two big spoons using a lifting-and-folding motion for about 20 seconds, reaching to the bottom each time.
9. Taste one leaf. It should be glossy, not pooled, and taste distinctly seasoned. Add more dressing a tablespoon at a time only if leaves look dull. Any dressing left in the jar keeps refrigerated for 2 weeks.
10. Transfer to the chilled serving bowl, shower with the grated Parmigiano, and finish with flaky salt and cracked pepper. Serve immediately — a dressed salad has about a ten-minute window before it starts to wilt.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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