Vietnam is a tropical country, the weather is so hot the whole year. That’s why this is such a good place for making salad. Talking about salads, I love the Vietnamese style salad and Western style salad in TP HCM. Both ingredients and flavors are unique and delicious. I have some pocket lists that I always visit and do takeout when I am near: Shamballa Vegetarian, Restaurant Lounge & Cafe, L’Herbanyste, PLANTA Saigon, Hum Vegetarian, Garden & Restaurant, Laang Restaurant, Prem Bistro and Cafe. For the Western style salads, I can still try to make it at home. But for Vietnamese style salads, I always buy from restaurants because the ingredients and seasoning are so hard to handle. One time I try to make my own banana flower salad, but I didn’t know how to handle banana flower and it turned out really bad haha. I really love so salad shops, and I can only eat tons of salad to fill up my tummy:)

So, when I cook at home, I also make a lot of salads because I can prep the ingredients and it is easy to make salad. I often try to take photos of the ingredients in salad and salad dressing when I go to a restaurant. It will give me more ideas when making salad.

The most frequently used ingredients are green leaves, cucumber, tomato, color pepper, and mushrooms. But sometimes I prefer hot salad, it usually happens when I add mushroom inside, I will cook everything in a pot or bake all ingredients. I also like to bake pepper one night in advance so the next time I can use baked pepper, the flavor is much more condense. And recently I found ingredients for making Japanese style seaweed salad, it tastes soooo good with the Japanese style salad dressing!

Talking about salad dressing, when I am too lazy, I use balsamic vinegar (both liquid and syrup one) with olive oil, the easiest salad dressing. When I have time, I will add sour liquid such as orange juice or lemon juice, and add some crushed nuts or chopped sun-dried tomatoes or gherkins into the salad dressing. If it is mayo-based dressing, I will add chopped plums, wasabi, bonito flake to make it Japanese style, or yellow mustard to make it Western style. Sometimes I use yogurt-based salad dressing, then i will add some sour liquid like apple cider vinegar or lime juice to add sourness, and I will add fresh fruits or dried fruits. Until now, I am quite satisfying with my salad combination and salad dressing. But I am not sure if other people would like it haha.