Your three or four best salads, please

[Abeona]

I've been tasked with taking at least four salads to an evening event in mid-June where there will be a raclette grill for everyone to make their own combo of sliced steak/cheese/potato/ham/gherkin/onion and whatever. Around 20 people expected, including Dutch, Belgian and Germans who may have their own ideas about salad...

I'm thinking a good green salad (lettuce, watercress, spinach, perhaps some avocado) with a classic vinaigrette is a must-have.

Wondered about a nice tangy beetroot-based salad to cut through the cheese.

Pasta salad to offer some carbs, perhaps? What's your best one?

Carrot salad: John Torode does a nice one with mint, ginger and coriander.

Lentil salad: lots of lentils with loads of veg and herbs chopped fine and a dressing.

Potato salad? There will be potatoes offered with the raclette but when I think Dutch, German and Belgian I think potato salad...

At the risk of sounding stingy, I need to keep costs fairly low. I've been told to spend no more than £30 on salads, and while I can provide lettuce and spinach and chives and possibly spring onions from my own garden, things like tomato salad are just going to be too expensive to provide for 20 people. Even buying beetroot will be pushing it...

@ditalini All Hail indeed

Pickled red slaw
Slice a whole bag of red onions, grate a whole bunch of raw beetroot (should be back in stock soon). Boil vinegar with a big pinch of salt and a couple of teaspoons of sugar, add the onions and stir for a minute, add the beetroot and take off the heat. When cold scoop the veggies out and add to a shredded red cabbage. Season with black pepper and caraway add some olive oil. (£3.64 at Aldi including the vinegar).

Budget waldorf slaw
One head chinese cabbage (gives a different texture), whole head of celery, walnuts, wonky apples, greek yoggi in the dressing (£5.31 at Aldi)

Praying that @Abeona has a food processor....

I either love you or hate you, depending on the level of sarcasm attached to this post.

@PossumintheHouse Is correct, you are coming across as very rude to some suggestions. That's all they are SUGGESTIONS!!! You are picking apart recipes and ideas and basing prices on now- and not summer pricing when things are in season. Lidl do veg boxes for £2, plus you can pick up food on olio for free. In summer, I often see free veg stalls outside peoples homes.

Most salads are flexible with ingredients. The balsamic glaze I suggested up thread can be replaced with cheaper balsamic vinegar and sugar. The watermelon salad idea has no dressing, it doesn't need it- hence I never included olive oil or a dressing in the ingredients!

Having hosted and been to several raclette parties, I also think you are over estimating the amount of salad people will eat. Making 80 servings of salad for 20 people is ridiculous IMO. I'd go with your original suggestions.

No sarcasm meant at all- just trying to be helpful

This. I often feed this number of people and never cater a salad when there is a selection at more than serving 8 when there’s 20 guests.

Some won’t touch it, most will have a small amount and have a selection.

Thank you, @Words You say

It sounds like you will (hurrah!) be catering for hearty eaters but in my experience things people (not me) avoid include

Beetroot
Mushrooms
Beans ( but these are great of course for the veggies)

Thanks for the warning. Pity about beetroot. I thought it was getting more popular, but perhaps not. I was thinking of it because it works nicely with a citrussy or slightly acidic dressing which will help counteract the cheesiness of the raclette. But if there's a major anti-beetroot brigade, then perhaps it's best avoided. I had a neighbour call around with some asparagus plants for me just now and we talked salads and she says she can't eat cucumbers: apparently they give her terrible indigestion, even peeled and deseeded. Who knew salads were such a minefield?

I share your love of watercress. You can grow it at home as a microgreen, as you do mustard and cress. The roots need to be kept wet all the time, which makes it a bitt difficult if you're going away for a few days over a warm spell. I could certainly grow some in the 10 days before the event and hope it came on enough to harvest.

When you say servings, what do you mean? I'm classing a serving as a heaped tablespoonful, which doesn't seem a lot. But then I eat salads by the bowlful.

I make a salad which is rice, sweet chilli sauce, lime juice, spring onions and salmon.

That's lovely!

Hello ! I think if slow roasted it's stunning - it sounds like you have a lovely mix of folk and palates so probably little to worry about.

Maybe the U.K. dislike in some comes from memories of harshly pickled beetroot from jars served with undressed cos lettuce and huge chunks of cucumber served with tinned salmon and salad cream.

Roasted it is a totally different beast ( I find thyme works well) but it can take a long time for people to try it again

@Abeona

We've had vegan visitors turn up to visit, hoping for supper, so I'm off to make dhal. Have a good evening.

Ooh asparagus. now you're talking!

I often make Nigella's cous cous salad and a grated carrot salad. Both look very colourful and are fairly cheap.

Last summer fresh beetroot was definitely not a cheap option, nor is asparagus. The farmers have been struggling to plant up due to the rains so there won’t be a lot around early in the season.

Things like celery, carrots, cabbage (green/red/savoy), kale, potatoes, sweet potato etc are what you want to work with.

I wasn't planning an asparagus salad, I've just been given some plants to grow my own, that's all.

Doesn’t asparagus take years to get a crop?

Feta and watermelon with chilli is nice, a watermelon goes a long way and the fetas can be crumbled to small?

A good old Greek salad is always a winner

Buy a large pack of cucumber and roughly chop. Finely chop red onion, add balsamic and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, mix it all up and let it sit for a few hours. Delicious and easy.

<a href="https://dev-samihapn.pantheonsite.io/orchids/">orchids</a>?

Has anyone mentioned coleslaw? Both red and white cabbage, maybe sultanas in if you like them (I do) and a good yoghurt dressing with lemon juice and black pepper. I prefer these to the commercially made ones which are heavy with mayonnaise and you can hardly taste the coleslaw. 🌹

Research on this - you cannot harvest for a couple of years - they need to be left to grow first.

I see someone mentioned bean salad. I love these (especially butter beans) and it's so very easy if you're using a variety of tinned beans. I drain off most of the water, put them all in a large dish, warm them through in the microwave and add a nice dressing in whilst the beans are still warm and set them aside to drink in the flavour of the dressing. 🌹

If you have herbs in the garden definitely something tabboulehish. It will be cheap as chips.

I also love a green goddess salad with cabbage (again cheap) you could simplify the dressing using herbs from the garden, natural yoghurt, garlic and a squirt of lemon.

One of the best salads I did inspired by a friend bbq was a base of shredded iceberg, then pretty much raid the tinned section of aldi, so sweetcorn, mixed beans, pickles, tinned potatoes (cubed small) with a dressing if choice and toss it all together. I add feta but you teeny chunks of the basics mild cheddar would work. You can chuck pretty much anything in