Food - Drink
How Restaurants In Italy Usually Serve Salads
By STEPHANIE FRIEDMAN
While certain dishes come to mind when you think of Italian salads, such as antipasti, caprese, or a bowl of mixed greens with Italian dressing, natives of Italy have different ideas of what constitutes a salad. While salads in Italy may hold some similarities to the Italian-American ones, they're completely different in composition.
An easy way to tell you’re eating an authentic Italian salad is that the ingredients will not only be incredibly fresh, but served without any rich or powerful dressings. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, salads in Italy will use the freshest vegetables possible paired with nothing but extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, and salt.
Quality olive oil and white or red wine vinegar are the standard, as they won't overpower the flavor of the vegetables. Additionally, if you order a salad in a typical Italian restaurant, it won't usually arrive dressed; instead, the ingredients will be placed on the table for you to dress it yourself (and don't expect to see Italian dressing).