Wedge salads

If you find a slug- that's protein.

They’re a vehicle for bacon, natch

I like wedgie salads.

Some people are dieting.

You've never eaten one, have you OP?

Straight men often order them.

What's wrong with icebergs?

They seem like a concoction of a lazy pantry chef. Instead of making a proper salad, they just hack off a hunk of iceberg and toss a bunch of toppings on it.

Bland AF

r8 kind of like the lazy chefs who give you a house salad with monster-sized wedges of tomato or cucumber "slices" that are practically the thickness of a hockey puck. You can't fit these gargantuan sized vegetable pieces in your mouth! Don't get me started on the HUGE ASS sized croutons. Fuckwits.

I actually like iceberg lettuce. Yes, yes, I realize it's considered low class by some or most,and offers little nutritional value.

And it's so hard to find at any salad bar nowadays.

I asked a few years ago at a Whole Foods Market why they never have iceberg lettuce at their salad bar. They claimed it's not organic, so it won't be offered at their salad bar.

Hmmm. Are all the other lettuces there always organic? Carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers. etc.? Dressings? Do most here even care if a salad bar is all organic?

Heck, I'm just happy to even find a salad bar after Covid. Even prior., some supermarkets had shut them down and just offered packaged salads. And one never sees broccoli and certain other salad options in store-packaged salads, right?

But...if iceberg is so low-class...why do many high-end steakhouses offer a wedge of iceberg?

I grew up with iceberg, so it's nostalgic for me (and others here?).

I like it for its crunch. I mix it with romaine and other better lettuces at a salad bar.

I like iceberg too, r11, and for the same reason. Many lettuces are too soft and lack texture for my taste. I buy the bags of "garden salad" which are mixed with slivers of carrots and purple cabbage. The cabbage and carrots contribute the nutrients that the lettuce is lacking. If I want some more nutrition I'll toss in some spinach leaves into the mix. However, I like greens in general, so I'm not too worried. Even the greenest lettuces are nowhere close to kale or collard greens in nutritional value and I eat a ton of those (cooked). . I'd rather have the crunch and texture when I'm in the mood for a salad than going for spring mix or baby greens. I see a lot of prebagged salads I never buy, such as broccoli slaw.

Regarding salad bars, I've been told that they are sprayed with various preservatives (usually sulfites) to keep them from wilting and having to be thrown out every night, so I usually avoid them when dining out.

The Trumps actually served this lazy, baby-taste concoction at state dinners.

It has been a thing for a hundred years as it was a lettuce that could be shipped from CA to NY by train.

Where are wedge salads a thing.

I never heard of them before.

R15 One place they are "a thing" is at Outback restaurants, which serves a classic "steakhouse" wedge salad.

Wedge salads are pretty fucking similar to Cobb Salads. Crunchy lettuce with other shit.

They are good looking. They have texture and are not baby food - you have to deal with cutting - have grown up table manners and skill. If the ingredients are high quality, they are tasty and have interesting textures.

FUCK YOU BABYTASTE GOO GA GA OP

Looking at that photo at R16, I want to eat one now.

R11, I like iceberg lettuce, too. It's the only lettuce for a sandwich as far as I'm concerned because of the crunch. I hate sandwiches with romaine or, worse green leaf lettuce, where you take a bit and the whole limp leaf comes along with the bite. Since I keep iceberg around for sandwiches, I use it in salads, too.

As for wedge salads, the crunchy iceberg is a vehicle for the topping, which classically is blue cheese dressing, often with crumbles of blue cheese, chopped tomatoes and/or chopped bacon. It's easy to make and anything but bland.

Iceberg us a must for burgers and tacos imo.

I prefer limestone salads. And two New York steaks. Rare.

I like iceberg lettuce well enough but I detest blue cheese so wedge salads are a no-no for me. I like to throw some iceberg in with romaine and kale in conventional salads, though.

I can't stand lettuce. The only salad I can stand is what is often called 'spring mix', and even then it has to be mixed with olives, peppers, tomato, croutons- dressing and/or feta cheese.

I like iceberg lettuce too. I’ve never had a wedge salad but I’d love one as long as it came with a dressing I liked (I hate blue cheese dressing).

[quote] Some people are dieting.

Unsuccessfully if they drown it in all that dressing and cover it with bacon.

I've had a wedge salad with thick ranch dressing and one with and thousand island dressing. Both were delicious and didn't have the texture of lawn cuttings or assembled weeds.

I love a good wedge salad, if done properly.

R18 I'm the furthest thing from "babytastes," you prick.

Cool, fresh, and dressed. Simple goodness. Maybe the layers are the attraction.

[quote]I prefer limestone salads. And two New York steaks. Rare.

Forgetting something, Lucille?

Iceberg lettuce has its place. The Old Spaghetti Factory serves iceberg lettuce salads (not in a wedge). IIRC, there was a bit of purple cabbage (raw) in the mix and, possibly, a bit of raw carrot. The key was that everything was ice cold: the lettuce, the plate. I liked it with blue cheese salad dressing.

[quote]They seem like a concoction of a lazy pantry chef. Instead of making a proper salad, they just hack off a hunk of iceberg and toss a bunch of toppings on it.

This is pretty much it.

I am fine with iceberg even though it's rarely my first choice but wedge salad isn't something I have ever had because I am suspicious of how well the lettuce can be washed while remaining a wedge.

I once went to a talk and book signing where Julia Child was featured. She spoke of the “unjustly maligned” iceberg lettuce. She said it was the best lettuce for most sandwiches and creamy dressings, such as blue cheese and Green Goddess.

OP: There's no need to swear.

A classic. Delish. You must have been raised poor if you don't "get" the wedge salad.

Lots of steaming hot wedge salad takes in this thread. Stay pressed, DL.

The thing I like about wedge salads, besides being an ideal conveyance for bacon and a creamy, decadent salad dressing, is that you have to use a knife and fork. You can slice off the perfect bite sized amount. Unlike other salads you're not fumbling with random or poorly sized pieces.

Yeah, I think it is probably the best lettuce for a sandwich.

Frankly, though, some things, like a cheeseburger, only need the bun, the cheese, and the condiments (ketchup, maybe caramelized onions).

As usual, Julia was right R35

My guilty pleasure is iceberg with 1000 Island dressing … yes, I know it’s basically mayonnaise and ketchup - still delicious

I prefer a frozen- slushy V-8 served up in a martini glass with a wedge of lemon as an appetizer (which actually, it pretty good).

Tomato juice will always be a classic old school appetizer R41 so I applaud your modern V-8 take.

And iceberg lettuce isn’t nutrient free.

R36 you should probably read this fucking article

[quote] The key was that everything was ice cold: the lettuce, the plate.

The stare from your younger, handsomer dinner guest when you tell the waiter, "Separate checks!"

I always make a wedge salad or two in the summer.

Cut a "disc," not a wedge, of iceberg. Top it with homemade ranch dressing made with buttermilk, sprinkle with lots of pepper and Trader Joe's Everything But the Bagel seasoning, scatter with crushed crispy bacon and chopped fresh dill.

"Crushed" bacon? Crumbled or chopped, perhaps -- but CRUSHED?

[quote]"Crushed" bacon? Crumbled or chopped, perhaps -- but CRUSHED?

Not crushed to dust; I put the cooked bacon strips between two paper towels and roll a wine bottle back and forth over them.

Wedge salads are awesome!

I'd say they've come full circle and are quite chic!

More bacon bits, mom!

The Pacific Dining Car (RIP) was an old fashioned, very swanky 24-hour high end diner just west of downtown LA. When I wanted to splurge I would get a nice steak and wedge salad there. Whoever said above that they key is fresh and very cold ingredients is spot on. The Wedge came on a chilled plate, served with a chilled salad fork, and was simple: wedge of iceberg lettuce, crispy chunks of bacon, crumbles of Roquefort, and blue cheese dressing. Salt and cracked pepper, and you're in for a treat.

Some places add tomatoes, croutons, cucumbers, peppers, etc. to the plate, but I like the simplicity of a classic Wedge.

Lettuce-hating r24, honey, you need a traditional Greek salad.

No lettuce. It's just bite-sized sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, Bell peppers, red onion (or not), cubes of mild sheep's milk Feta, Kalamata olives (they're extremely salty yet tangy -- plain California olives from a can will do), some dried oregano (fresh chopped basil or mint will work), and a simple dressing of 1:3 parts red wine vinegar or lemon juice with S&P, a bit of chopped garlic and a pinch of dried oregano. So easy. I always have these ingredients on hand, as I steal from various neighbors' overgrown lemon trees. Some pita bread triangles with hummus, and you've got yourself a meal.

I've added crumbled bacon to my Greek salads, but it was not worth the hassle of frying bacon and it somehow tasted immoral. Unseemly. Dysfunctional. Delicious. You could probably skip the red onion and feta substitute blue cheese/Roquefort dressing for the Greek dressing and call it a day.

Using leftovers, you can remove the cucumbers and set them aside (cooked cucumbers are revolting), then sauté the rest in a pan, turn to low heat, crack in a few beaten eggs, and have yourself a delicious omelet. In minutes.

A wedge salad is simply empty calories with high sodium, nitrates, fat, and cholesterol, without any fiber. And as my hero E-L stated upthread, lettuce (picked in blazing hot fields artificially irrigated by the dying Colorado River by desperately poor immigrants who have no access to toilet or handwashing facilities with clean water) likely contains E. coli and Listeria bacteria plus Norovirus. You don't want that shit in your salad.

[quote]Kalamata olives (they're extremely salty yet tangy -- plain California olives from a can will do)

And I suppose if you can't get Feta, Velveeta will suffice?

Stats show that E. Coli outbreaks with romaine lettuce are far higher. And research suggests that there's actually a pathogen-vegetable interaction going on where it's adapted to living on that lettuce.

And regardless of the crop, wild animals can get into any field and take a dump and birds flying overhead poop on crops as well.

I use bagged prepared salads, they're so convenient and store well. I've tried them all, most have varieties of romaine or all the less tasty, more bitter leafy varieties. And yet, my favorite by far are the iceberg versions, that have a smattering of carrot and blue cabbage. Walmart sells them in perfect sizes. Always fresh and crunchy, not the wimpy wilty leafy lettuces that remind me of soggy fallen leaves you find on the sidewalk after a rain.

Iceberg lettuce, like cabbage, pulls up leaves around its core as a protection against insects, but accidentally or incidentally that also protects the innards from environmental issues (dirt, debris). Pull off the outer leaves of both vegetables, do a rinse of the remaining head under a steady stream of clean water for 30 seconds, and you won't have any problems. With other relatives of these vegetables that are non-heading, you're better off pulling the leaves off of the main stem and rinsing them individually, then patting them dry or putting them somewhere to dry.

Interesting way to avoid some of the issues posters are raising.

I always lead a healthy lifestyle.

Ina's iceberg salad. Easier to spot any dirt between the leaves this way, and just as tasty.

They look dumb and I’m not a fan of iceberg. Also I want to easily eat a salad I don’t want to tear chunks from it.

R58 Tear chunks from it?

One eats a wedge salad with a knife and fork.

I don’t want to eat salad like a piece of meat

Then don't, r60.

I like a good wedge salad slathered in blue cheese dressing, but only in a restaurant. I never buy iceberg lettuce as it's 99% water. If you take a full head of iceberg lettuce and squeeze all the water out of it you'll end up with something the size of a ping pong ball. And it has almost zero nutritional value. It's good to use as a filler lettuce if you have to make a garden salad for a quite large group though. Using nothing but the expensive lettuces will break the bank.

I like my salads the same way I like my men.

Limp, R63?

I don’t know about what R63 wants in a man, but don’t we all want well dressed, rich and a pleasure to eat out?

R58, you sound pretty dumb. I doubt eating a wedge salad could make you look any dumber.

Wedge sandals, on the other hand, can be lovely.

I like R45’s wedge salad. It makes more sense to cut it into a disc. Sounds like it’s easier to cut & eat. I may give it a try sometime soon.

Not if you are a restaurant.

Yeah the disc cut is wasteful, you wouldn't get more that 2-3 discs from a single head of iceberg. You'd be left with end pieces that would basically fall apart.

Ranch dressing dumped over a chunk of iceburg lettuce.

That's what we've become?

Apparently wedge salads are a wedge issue.

At the late "America" restaurant in NYC they served a wedge salad called The Mimi Salad in honor of Mimi Sheraton.

I used to work at their sister restaurant Ernie's on the UWS.

These were two of the hottest and most exemplary 80s restaurants in town, now both long gone.

I don’t like to have to work to eat my food.

Wedge salad or wedgies: they both suck.

Ever since I started following this thread I’ve been JONESING for a wedge salad! I finally had one today along with grilled flank steak; SO DELICIOUS . . . 🤤

I prefer tossing salad

R49 with what wine? Chilly Sauternes or Moscato d'Asti? Demi-sec champagne? Franciacorta?

r78, initially I thought that was directed at r77, which conjured up quite an image.....

I don'r even understand the name, really.

I think of a salad as different foods chopped up and mixed together. Usually vegetables, sometimes fruit salad, sometimes egg salad, sometimes tuna salad, and so on. Always the same concept.

Or: A slice of lettuce with a blob of creamy dressing.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but wedge salads were started during the 50's. Up until the 80's salads were mostly just iceberg lettuce. I remember eating at a restaurant in Pittsburgh PA in the late 80's that offered this wonderful salad made up of all different kinds of greens and wondered why it took them so long to come up with it.

Somewhere in there the wedge died because iceberg did a semi death. Along comes Trump who has wedge salads served at Mar a lago and the wedge was reborn.

The best blue cheese dressing is made by Cindy's Kitchen. It's the only one loaded with chunks of blue cheese and would be great on an iceberg wedge.

R78 - A 2016 Brunello!

Iceberg, romaine, spinach... all good to me. Just keep your fucking chunks of God damn red cabbage out of my salad!

The Wedge Salad was reborn when it was featured in an episode of Mad Men.

R10, I haven’t read the whole thread yet, so sorry if someone beat me to it, but you’re lucky to get sliced tomato at all.

Most places I go just throw five whole, unsliced grape tomatoes on top and call it a day,

Now that’s lazy!

R10 I love you. Loved every word.

As this article says, "This classic salad is a celebration of rich, cooling flavors and a diversity of textures. .. The wedge salad is a mouth party, and all ingredients are invited to each and every bite."

And rather than look at it as "lazy cooking," - a good wedge salad made with quality ingredients lets one appreciate the flavors of each one of them and they all complement a bite of steak quite well.

Even in the twee, foodie SF Bay Area, iceberg lettuce never really completely went out of favor -- you could still find this item on menus at high-end steakhouses and local, mom and pop retro-dive diners. Was at a sort of high-end restaurant in a tony suburb of Boston a few months ago for brunch that's neither a steakhouse nor a dive diner and ordered the featured Wedge as my meal. It was meh. Don't recall why. Maybe the blue cheese was either bland or too salty and sharp. Something was off. Maybe the flavorless produce was from Florida?

Famed chefs Alice Waters and Julia Child were friends, I believe. I remember reading an article 15 or 30(?) years ago in which Alice dissed iceberg lettuce while Julia defended it.

[quote] OP: There's no need to swear.

I don’t know why, but this strikes me as the funniest thing I’ve read on here in weeks. Probably the funniest since I read the entirety of the “Danny Boon” thread.

Wedge salads — especially if they’re topped with blue cheese dressing — do not appeal to me at all, but I love iceberg lettuce, and I think people who dismiss it as “boring” or of low nutritional value are just being pretentious. There is NOTHING wrong with iceberg lettuce, as lettuces go. It is a wonderful ingredient/topping/bed/boat. It crunches like no other lettuce. It has a water content like no other lettuce (this is not a bad thing, hello?!).

You want more nutritional value for your salad? Put other nutritionally dense produce in there. You’ll live.

*

They've apparently been a thing forever in Germany, which is probably where the idea originated from.

Koch’s grocery store (no relation that I know) made us dunk iceberg lettuce in water before wrapping. The store charged by the pound.

Some history about the Wedge Salad at link.

Those Iceberg Babies are so cute!

If you don't care for Iceberg lettuce or blue cheese. you can find variations using Bibb lettuce wedges and Ranch.

Back in the 2000s, my parents had a friend who'd talk about a casino steakhouse's salad wedge as "that fuckin' salad wedge." He said it in the funniest Mississippi accent because yes, this was at a casino on the MS Gulf Coast. But yeah, they ask a lot for just a fuckin' salad wedge.

This Mexican version with a cilanto-lime dressing sounds good with grilled chicken. I'd add some avocado on the plate.

That sounds wonderful, r99. The best one yet.

This one uses the Iceberg round and a slice of watermelon as the wedge.

The cheese is feta and the dressing buttermilk-based.

Sounds very refreshing for summer.

If one doesn't care for Iceberg Lettuce, you can make a wedge like salad with those "mini Romaine" heads of lettuce called "Little Gems" and just cut them in half for the wedge. I see them at Ralphs (Kroger) in four packs.

I do rather fancy the idea of cutting the head off of Romaine. Rebecca, bring me the axe!

[quote]as my hero E-L stated upthread

I think that was rescue chick, not Elderlez.

What R102 said with romaine. Has anyone tried to make the wedge with charred romaine?

I thought a Wedge Salad was when your tongue got stuck during a butt munch.

Omg, OP's title cracks me up! " WTF are they a thing"! 🤣

Keilsalat