Super Salad
Sides, Soups & Salads
The heavy porcelain bowl awaits anyone who sat in a vinyl booth at two in the morning and enthusiastically ordered the Super Salad when a deadpan waitress muttered soup or salad. It is a linguistic accident the best flat-top veterans turned into structured prep and a plastic squeeze bottle. It is a blue-collar mountain of shredded iceberg, julienned deli meats, and sharp block cheese. The secret to making it taste exactly like the diner on Route 1 isn't the ingredients, it is the technique: an ice-water bath for shattering crispness, frosted bowls, and bacon rendered hard and scraped right off the cast iron. Keep the porcelain freezing cold, and that diner crunch takes care of itself.
Before you start
Hard-boil the eggs in advance.
Boil the eggs for exactly 10 minutes, then immediately transfer them to an ice bath to stop the cooking process and prevent a green ring from forming around the yolk.
Ingredients
- Iceberg lettuce1/2 med
- Romaine lettuce1/2 med
- hickory smoked bacon4 large
- deli-sliced smoked ham6 oz
- deli-sliced roasted turkey breast6 oz
- eggs2 large
- block sharp Cheddar cheese3 oz
- block Swiss cheese3 oz
- cherry tomatoes1/2 cup
- English cucumber1/2 med
- red onion1/4 small
- Buttermilk Ranch or Thousand Island dressing3/4 cup
- black pepper1/4 tsp
Method
- 01
Chill the bowls and forks.
Place two large, wide salad bowls and your salad forks directly into the refrigerator or freezer for at least 20 minutes to fight off the heat of a fast-paced kitchen.
- 02
Shock the greens in an ice-water bath.
Submerge the chopped iceberg and romaine in a large bowl of cold water and ice cubes for 10 to 15 minutes to rehydrate the plant cells and produce a shatteringly crisp texture.
- 03
Render the bacon and scrape the pan.
Lay the bacon flat in a cold cast-iron skillet over medium heat, and as the fat renders, use a sturdy metal spatula to firmly scrape the bottom of the skillet to pick up the caramelized fond.
- 04
Cool and crumble the bacon.
Transfer the crisped bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate, let it cool completely, and break it into heavy pieces.
- 05
Spin the greens aggressively until bone dry.
Remove the lettuce from the ice bath and run it through a salad spinner twice, as wet lettuce will cause the heavy dressing to slide off and pool unappetizingly at the bottom of the bowl.
- 06
Build the salad architecturally.
Retrieve your frosted bowls, build a high mountain of greens in the center, and arrange the ham, turkey, cheddar, and Swiss in neat, symmetrical sections around the perimeter.
- 07
Garnish and serve immediately.
Place the quartered eggs, tomatoes, and cucumber in the remaining spaces, scatter the onion rings and crumbled bacon over the top, and serve with a ramekin of dressing on the side and a heavy crack of black pepper.
Notes
Buy block cheese, never pre-shredded.
Pre-shredded cheese is coated in anti-caking starches that ruin the creamy mouthfeel required for a proper diner salad.
Do not substitute the greens.
Spring mix and kale lack the structural integrity to hold up to the heavy meats, cheeses, and rich dressings that define this dish.
From Cook Diner Food at Home.