Our Michelin Chefs Cook series always brings you the best videos of top chefs working their craft. Whether it’s a killer steak, better-for-you takeout foods, or warming soups and stews, there are always new tricks that you can learn from our Michelin-starred chef recipe collections.
Here we have scoured the internet for some of the best gourmet salad recipes from top chefs. Salad is great comfort food that can come together in a dash, but it's easy to get into a rut. Stop making ordinary salads and toss together a show stopper that everyone will want to dig into. Mix plant-based ingredients with meat, poultry or fish and you can always lean on the classics like potato salad, corn salad and caprese but adding your own twist.
Don't neglect your side salad, with these recipes form Michelin star chefs you can elevate your side dish to something that is just as appreciated as your main course. Green salads come alive with the addition of cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, toasted almonds, bell peppers goat cheese, red onions and of course high-quality olive oil. Pomegranate molasses and figs can really add excitement to your salad.
6 salad recipes by Michelin-starred chefs
1. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's shrimp salad
For a light starter to any meal, try the acclaimed chef’s steamed shrimp salad with two dressings. We love this salad for its simplicity - just fresh shrimps and mixed greens come together with two different types of luxurious sauces.
2. Gordon Ramsay’s spicy beef salad
Gordon Ramsay's salad recipe makes use of a great piece of beef and turns it into an Asian-inspired salad full of fresh cherry tomatoes, mixed greens, and herbs. The salad dressing is bright and spicy, made with fiery red chilies, fish sauce, lime juice, and mint. The entire salad is topped off with toasted peanuts.
3. Daniel Boulud’s favourite salad recipes
Chef Daniel Boulud creates two super easy summer salads - one with a medley of tomatoes, another with peaches and Parmesan cheese. If you're used to making tomato caprese salad, try the starred-chef's version with labneh instead.
Labneh, a Middle Eastern fresh cheese, is easily made at home - simply wrap a cheesecloth over some greek yoghurt and hang over a bowl in the fridge overnight. The result will be a fresh cheese with a cream cheese-like consistency that can take on any flavour you wish in a dish.
2 Caesar salads: Thomas Keller vs Massimo Bottura
4. Thomas Keller caesar salad
If you are after a good old caesar, Thomas Keller's salad is where it’s at. In this video for the New York Times, the chef goes through each and every element of this American classic, from what olive oil to use, why you use anchovies in the dressing, to what type of salt you should be sprinkling on your salads. This is the guide to help you make the best caesar salad of your life.
5. Massimo Bottura’s caesar salad
Called Modena to Dubai, Bottura’s salad shares a few elements in common with the caesar salad, but is something entirely new that only Bottura can create. Ingredients like Parmesan cheese mingle with balsamic vinegar from Bottura’s hometown of Modena, as well as ingredients unique to the Middle East.
While we don't recommend it, you may (if you absolutely must) substitute the balsamic vinegar with red wine vinegar if you can't find it, and go for a good mix of baby greens and edible flowers for visual effect.
6. Enrico Crippa’s 21-31-41 salad recipe
This is one of Crippa’s most famous recipes, partly because it uses a whopping 40+ ingredients for a salad that is kept entirely raw. His process of picking all the ingredients, such as succulents, greens, roots, and flowers from his two gardens makes for fascinating viewing, and the resulting salad is a symphony of raw flavours.
You won't find any feta cheese or red onions here. Rather, the entire dish is about tasting the incredible diversity in flavours and textures of greens - some familiar, some not so much. Use it as a guide to creating your own composition of fresh vegetables.
