The Key to a Good Salad: Some Glazed Nuts, and a Killer Dressing

I want to share one of my secrets to sounding like a much fancier cook than I am: glazed nuts.  Have you ever gone to a restaurant and seen a salad served with "maple-glazed pecans" or "honey-glazed walnuts"?  Sweet, maybe a little spicy, with an aura of gourmet - not bad for a garnish or a salad topping.  Well, guess what: they are also one of the easiest things ever to make.  Glazed nuts are one of my go-to desserts, because I feel less guilty eating a lot of sugar if that sugar is wrapped around some protein.  They're also an easy snack food, and, most importantly, they make for one damn fancy-sounding salad.

But what is a salad without the dressing?  I am constantly frustrated by store-bought dressings.  Almost all of them feature dairy, or eggs, or soy products, or beet juice (all-natural colouring!)  Some salad dressings that have absolutely no need for dairy (such as honey-mustard) still use milk ingredients for flavour!  It's infuriating.  Luckily, years ago a family friend (who also happens to be a personal chef) taught me the key to a good dressing, and now I would like to pass it along to you.

So keep reading to find out my two secrets to an amazing salad.  Once you have a dressing, and some fancy nuts, the rest is easy!  Wash and shred some lettuce; or, if you're like me, and hate the salad spinner with a fiery passion, invest in one of the bags or boxes of pre-washed salad greens.  Chop up whatever veggies or fruit you happen to have on hand.  (May I suggest roasted red pepper, tomato, and strawberry?  Or avocado and black bean with some chopped tortilla chips on top?  Or some kiwi fruit and celery?  Honestly, whatever you have on hand works; and you can adjust your dressing recipe to match!)  Then pour on the dressing, top with some nuts, and enjoy!
Glazing nuts
I figured out how to glaze nuts several years ago through basic trial and error - I had a general idea what went into them and thought "well why not see if I can figure out how to make them".  Once I succeeded the first time, I don't think I've served a salad at a dinner party that didn't have glazed nuts.  They are just so easy and delicious. Since then, I've played around with different techniques and flavour combinations, and I've very rarely managed a bad result.

There are two, maybe three components to glazing nuts:

• Nuts themselves.  I've mostly used walnuts or pecans, since they're the nuts I keep around the house; but I see no reason any other kind of nut (almonds or cashews, for instance) couldn't be glazed.
• A source of sweetness.  Maple-glazed and honey-glazed nuts are the most common varieties I've come across, and they are both delicious.  I once tried to use orange marmalade to glaze nuts, and it didn't work as well - too thick and gelatinous and not as sweet, I think.  I'm sure that a simple sugar-water would work too, but I like the natural flavour that maple and honey impart.
• Spices/other flavouring agents.  I like to add cayenne pepper to nuts I'm using for savoury purposes, because it adds a nice kick.  (It also stops me from eating too many at once, which is an important consideration).  For dessert nuts, I will frequently glaze walnuts with lots of honey and cinnamon, to simulate baklava.  (Baklava is one of my favourite desserts, but layers of filo pastry aren't too friendly to my wheat allergy)

The basic technique to glazing nuts goes as follows:

• Chop your nuts (if you don't buy them pre-chopped), and add them to a non-stick skillet over low heat.
• Mix your source of sugar (and any spices you're using) with water until it has a thin consistency.  Pour over nuts and mix until the nuts are well-coated in the mixture.  How much sugar you add will depend on your personal preference, and is something you'll likely need to determine by trial and error.  (If you add too little, you can always re-glaze the same batch of nuts with more sugar-water).
• Cook the nuts over medium heat, stirring occasionally.  The water will start to evaporate and the sugar-liquid will thicken and caramelize, coating the nuts.
• Once the sugar solution in the pan has thickened to a thick paste, remove the nuts from the heat and let cool.  I generally transfer the nuts to a plate so I can immediately soak the pan
• Put the nuts out of sight as soon as possible (to prevent eating them all at once).  A ziplock plastic bag works well to store them.
• After the skillet has had plenty of time to soak, the sugar mixture should wash off easily

As a general rule of thumb, I always glaze twice as many nuts as I need for a recipe, because I know that I (and anyone else in my kitchen) will greedily snack on as many of the nuts as we can get our hands on.  If I make extras, I don't have to worry about still having enough by the time dinner rolls around.

Super Easy Dressing
Every dressing I make starts with four basic components: sweet, sour, oil, and bite.  Cooking shows will tell you that basic oil and vinegar can make a dressing, but I disagree.  I want some bite and texture to my dressing, thank you very much!

The "bite" component of one of my dressings, 99 times out of 100, consists of garlic and mustard.  I like to mince a clove of garlic and add it to pretty much every dressing I make; but if you really don't like garlic, it's not essential.  Mustard, on the other hand, I find completely essential.  (The only exception is when I'm making an Asian vinaigrette, in which case I use soy sauce and chopped ginger instead).  I'm a bit of a mustard fanatic - we have five kinds in our fridge.  Yellow burger mustard, in my opinion, is only useful for that one purpose of topping burgers.  For dressings, I always start with a grainy mustard, for appearance, texture, and sweetness.  Right now, I'm using a whole-grain Dijon.  But whole-grain mustards don't have a ton of spice, so I like to add a spicy mustard as well.  Polish mustard, "deli-style" mustard, creamy Dijon mustard, or Dijon-Horseradish mustard all work well.  If you're really stuck, powdered mustard is a less-ideal but acceptable alternative to any/all of the mustard suggestions above.  And since I really, really like mustard, I tend to add quite a lot to my dressings.

Next, we move on to sweet.  Being a major fan of maple flavour, I will often use maple syrup for this purpose.  Honey works too.  But for a sweet-spicy flavour, I've found red pepper or jalapeno jelly adds a nice hit; for a fruity dressing, or when I'm cooking for people who can't tolerate much sugar, I like using a sugar-free fruit jam; and for a holiday dressing, I'll use canned cranberry sauce.

Sour: this normally is some combination of vinegar and citrus.  Orange juice adds a nice fruity flavour to salad dressings, and can serve as both a sour and a sweet.  (If I'm using orange juice I'll make sure to add some vinegar as well).  A hit of lemon juice adds flavour, and lime juice is a really good base for a Mexican-inspired salad.   I am a big fan of balsamic vinegar, so most of the salad dressings I make use balsamic.  However, balsamic is a bossy flavour, and it will be the predominant taste in any dressing it's added to.  For dressings where I'm seeking to highlight one of my other ingredients (such as my holiday cranberry vinaigrette), I'll use a less forceful vinegar like red wine vinegar.  Really, it comes down to personal preference, and what you happen to have on hand. For soy-sesame or other Asian-inspired vinaigrette, rice vinegar (or rice-wine vinegar) is the logical choice.

Oil: Olive oil makes for a moderately healthy, flavourful dressing, and is my general go-to for salad dressings.  My parents use almost exclusively flax oil, for it's omega-3 health benefits, and if I have it on hand I'll use it too.  (But it's expensive, so that doesn't happen very often).  I find canola/corn/safflower/other veggie oils fairly flavourless and thin, and so I primarily use them in dressings where I don't want the olive oil to overpower the other dressing flavours.  Finally, a dash of sesame oil is a really nice flavour hit, especially in Asian-influenced salads.  (But don't try to use sesame oil as the only oil component of a recipe - the flavour is too strong and the oil is too expensive.  I'll often use a base of vegetable oil and add a few dashes of the sesame).

Finally, it's time to mix them all together!  Add your bite, sour, and sweet, and mix well.  Take a quick taste to make sure the various elements are in balance.  Next, drizzle in your oil, whisking or mixing constantly to help emulsify (i.e. prevent the oil from just sitting on top of the other dressing ingredients).  Conventional wisdom says one part vinegar to three parts oil; I personally find that ratio makes for very runny, oily dressings, so I tend to use less.  But I also entirely eyeball my dressing recipes, so I can't tell you exactly what ratios I use.

Once you've added the oil, taste your dressing again.  Seasons with salt & pepper as needed, and add any flavour components that are underrepresented in the final product.  (Often I find I overestimate how much oil I need, and so I add extra vinegar).

Pour dressings on top of salad right before serving, or else the greens will wilt.  If making dressing in advance, refrigerate before use.  However, keep in mind that olive oil thickens in the refrigerator, so if your dressing is thick to begin with, it may solidify in the fridge. In that case, bring the dressing to room temp before adding to the salad.