Why Wolfgang Puck Dresses Salad On A Sheet Pan Before Plating
Do you like your salad served dressed — or with dressing on the side? If you're in the dressing on the side camp, it might be because salad served dressed often arrives to the table feeling a bit soggy or bogged down. It's a tricky balance choosing the right kind of lettuce to hold up with the texture of salad dressing you're serving it with. If you are serving a thicker dressing like blue cheese dressing, ranch, or even a creamy vinaigrette, you might need a hardier lettuce to stand up to it. But if you're serving a more delicate dressing like a light vinaigrette or oil and vinegar, more delicate lettuces will work just fine.
Regardless of what kind of lettuce, veggie, and dressing combination you are using, chef extraordinaire Wolfgang Puck has a simple trick that will help your salad arrive to the table dressed looking — and tasting — great.
Sheet pans aren't just for baking
During an interview with Wired, Wolfgang Puck talked about his favorite ways to dress and serve a salad. Some of Puck's tips included dressing up the salad with edible flower petals and positioning larger leaves of lettuce at the base of the salad on the plate. The trick that might be the most memorable — and the best hack — is that he chooses to dress his salad on a sheet pan. His reasoning has to do with space. If you lay your lettuces on a sheet pan to dress them, they all have equal real state, and none of them are squishing the others. This is super helpful with those more delicate lettuces.
With Puck's trick, you can serve a salad dressed and also ensure that the lettuces will be nicely coated yet not soggy. You also avoid the lettuce on top squishing the lettuce on the bottom. Even more exciting is that your salad won't be drowning in a pool of extra dressing at the bottom of the plate or bowl. Leave it to one of the greatest of all time to give a glorious new use for our sheet pans.