• WHAT: Making attractive plate presentations for healthy food, which is a challenge because you are often working with brown whole grains and you are using less meat and less fat. The good news is that you can really increase the color with fruits and vegetables.
• WHO: The intended audience is for professionals who teach cooking demos, food service managers, dietary managers, dietitians, home economists, teachers and even aspiring culinarians. But anyone who wants to make a better looking dish in their kitchen would benefit, too. We use simple tips that make the food look and taste great – it is “edible food styling” – no weird chemicals or funny tricks.
• WHY: So everyone can enjoy making a really beautiful salad.

Take advantage of my plating skills honed from over 20 years in the foodservice industry including 2 Hyatt Hotels, many food shows, work with photographers plus my CIA and Switzerland education. A top plated presentation is always necessary in all facets foodservice. Presentation skills carried me through the rigorous tests of ProChef II, where I really learned the concept of the useful versus frivolous garnish.

My favorite chef, Hans Hickel, always said, “People eat with their eyes.”

• HOW: Study our tips below and bookmark or subscribe to this blog. If you want to make your presentations better, you can practice every day as you cook. There are countless cookbooks, blogs and magazines to give you ideas, too. If it looks good to you, try it!  And if you have an idea to share let us know below.

DON’T:

• rely on ingredients that do NOT add to or go with the food you are serving – examples include: a strawberry with a stem, a cutesy carved flower radish, big sprig of parsley, too-thick tomato slice or big piece of lettuce. Usually these add color but are not eaten. These are the easy way out. They are often an afterthought. BETTER IDEAS: chopped herbs, sprinkles of spices, drizzled sauces, dots of flavored oil, vegetable puree, thinly sliced fruits or vegetables that get eaten and add a crisp texture.
• serve a plate full of bland-colored food. BETTER IDEAS: shredded colorful veggies like carrots, red peppers, tomatoes, beets, etc. Try to mix up the colors so that you have an even spread of color on the plate.

As Master Chef Rudy Specklcamp said to me on my final ProChef II test day, “The craft of a chef is to make food that looks and tastes delicious.” He was talking about slicing everything neatly, choosing the right garnishes and finding accompaniments that make sense. This part is hard – it makes you think!

DO:

• Keep it simple and fresh.
• Cut in a uniform manner whenever possible – diced items should be square.
• Use lots of white plates – food always looks better on white. Solid plates are better than patterns. The food should be the pattern and focus.
• When using colors, consider complimentary colors and a variety of color.

TEST: Does the food really say, “eat me!”?

Here are 12 ways to present a delicious, healthy salad:

1) Tall – when making a salad, think tall. Tall could mean piling leafy greens in a high, airy pile. It can also mean a ramekin or bowl that is taller than it is wide. It can also include putting a wonderful Apple Waldorf Salad in a tall glass. Tall is tall!

2) WIDE – With salads, using a big plate helps them spread out wide so you get a lot of “goodies” on the top. This can be good for a platter that you are serving at a party – and also for a fun presentation, too. In this particular arrangement for our Spring Salad, we chose a large clear platter and topped our salad with fruits and nuts.

3) Patterns – in this Fruit Yogurt Salad, we have used a spiral pattern. But you can also line things up diagonally, horizontally or even in a scattered fashion.

4) Framed – it is good to frame your salad with chips, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. In this Taco Crunch Salad, just 5 chips (less than half of  a serving) make the taco salad more appetizing.

5) Fans – if you fan veggies over the top you get an interesting look as we did with this Asian Slaw.

6) Cups, bowls, plates, platters – you can use a variety of interesting bowls, dishes and ramekins to create visual interest and to complement the food. We LOVE white plates – you can never go wrong with a white plate. Plates that are too busy (think old fashioned flowered china) detract from the food. Here is our Asian Broccoli Sesame Salad in a cup:

This pile of dishes is on my microwave, ready to go!

7) Cascade – this Pasta Shrimp Salad, made with whole wheat penne, cascades off the greens – the greens are shredded finely.

8) Citrus – I believe that a small wedge of lemon, lime or an orange that is squeezed over a salad adds a lot of flavor without adding sodium and fat. See the salad above – the tiny squeezable bits of lemon are meant to go with the Shrimp Pasta Salad.

9) Drizzle – this technique is used over and over in cooking and desserts – you drizzle the sauce over the top in a fine stream as we have done with the Spinach Walnut Salad.

10) Molds – this is always fun with rice or Lemon Couscous Salad – you mold them in a scoop or bowl and put them on the plate.

11) Color – fruits and vegetables add the most wonderful colors.

12) Spritz and shine – normally chefs add a brush of butter or a spray of oil to foods to make them shiny. We like to use an Italian dressing spritzer. We are able to add a very light mist of a wonderful dressing – I bet we can dress a whole salad with less than a half teaspoon and it is shiny and fresh, never drowned!

NOW – YOU CAN BUY our new Salad Secrets eCookbook so you can make all of these and more at home.
As always the salad recipes we create are healthy. It is our hope that you will enjoy them as much as we do. Every salad is special and unique. This is the culmination of over 15 years of publishing

Best of all our salad recipes are updated for today’s time and budget pressed cook.

You will find delight in high-fiber, low-fat, low-sodium recipes that utilize a big variety of vegetables, greens, nuts, seeds, fruits, lean protein, fish and beans.

These are the most creative, healthy salads in the world.

In many cases you won’t need a recipe because we show the prepped ingredients and then the finished dish – in one glance you know just what to do.

PLUS you will enjoy salad handouts and articles -how to make flavored vinegar, what is a healthy salad, use salad for weight loss – and much more.

We have the eCookbook Salad Secrets available for sale in our store now.

Get INSPIRED for healthy salad!

Some of the features that will inspire and educate:

• 100 of the most creative, healthy salads!
• Pictures show HOW in easy steps
• Learn 9 different ways to make a salad
• 20 great presentation secrets – look like a professional chef
• Salad and weight control – what does the research say?
• How to keep your salad healthy – from Hollis Bass, MEd, RD
• Includes nutrition facts analysis for recipes – they are all low in fat and sodium
• Buying tips for ingredients