Chopped Kitchen Sink Salad with Yogurt Dressing & Bottarga Recipe on Food52 (2024)

This isn’t a shy salad: It should be a combination of many elements—the seasonal vegetables, a powerful dressing, and a crunchy textural accent. For me it’s the perfect way to repurpose leftovers into something new and delicious, and a great way to avoid wasted food.

You can make this a meal by adding in some leftover protein, like a little poached or grilled chicken or leftover cooked fish. It’s a salad that should never the same because it's not so much about shopping for the perfect ingredients as it is working with what you have.

The bottarga adds a briny flavor that I love, but you can easily swap that out that with fried croutons or toasted pine nuts, sesame seeds, or sunflower seeds, which will provide a crunchy texture. —Sara Jenkins

Directions

1. Prepare the dressing by finely mincing the garlic and mint leaves and stirring into the Greek yogurt. Add a pinch of salt and stir in the vinegar and olive oil. You should have a slightly runny dressing capable of easily dressing the salad. If it's not quite thin enough, add a teaspoon or so of water but check and adjust the salt if you do that.
2. Blanch the green beans in abundantly salted boiling water just until they turn bright green. Drain and spread in a single layer on a plate or tray to cool. Cut the fennel in half and remove the core, then slice into 1/2-inch pieces. Peel and cut the cucumber into 1/2-inch half-moons. Mix all the vegetables together with the scallions and toss with the dressing. Season with a pinch of salt (go easy because the bottarga is on the salty side) and black pepper, and then grate the bottarga over the salad on a microplane. Serve and eat.