Cookin’ with Hoss: Market Harvest Salad with Hoss’s Creamy Sweet Onion Dressing

Ahh, spring! The season of renewal, crocuses, daffodils, and Easter. It was a brutal winter, but the sub-zero temperatures are history (at least until next year!). Mother Nature is stirring, grass is growing, birds are singing, and a variety of tasty morsels are sprouting.   

Culinary gems, both cultivated and wild, are emerging, if not now, then in the relatively near future. True harbingers of spring are morels, those bizarre, honeycombed fungi in the woods, and asparagus, in many backyard gardens and truck farmers’ fields. Also cultivated are a wide variety of tender greens — oakleaf, baby romaine, buttercrunch, arugula, and my favorite, black seeded Simpson.   

Once you have the desired greens, either home-grown or from one of our great farmers markets, you’ll need to select a dressing for them. That can be as simple as straight vinegar and oil, a simple vinaigrette, hot bacon dressing for a “wilted” salad, or something a bit more substantial. The ubiquitous “Ranch” dressing is more prevalent than Thousand Island was fifty years ago, and although this is an option, my opinion is that this or any other heavy, mayonnaise-based dressing is going to overpower the delicate texture and flavor of the greens.   

If you’re not a fan of vinaigrettes, here’s a good compromise that is creamy but also fairly light. It was a popular option at Hoss’s Market’s Harvest Salad, which would go well on an Easter buffet, and it’s also a nice complement to fresh asparagus.   

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Salad Ingredients   

• Your choice of fresh spring greens   

• Dried cranberries (Craisins)   

• Sliced toasted almonds or sunflower kernels   

• Thinly sliced red onions   

• Shredded parmesan cheese   

• Tomatoes (Optional, if you can find some good ripe ones. Cherubs are a good fallback.)   

Dressing Ingredients   

• 1 cup mayonnaise   

• 1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar   

• Large yellow onion, cut in pieces (enough to yield 1 cup puree)  

• 3/8 cup sugar   

• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard   

• 1 teaspoon celery seed   

• 1 teaspoon salt   

• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground  
  black pepper   

• 1/2 tablespoon Hoss’s Italian seasoning     

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Dressing directions   

• Puree the onions in a food processor.  

• Mix all remaining ingredients, then mix in the onions.  

• Enjoy! 

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Jim “Hoss” Koetting is a retired restaurateur/chef who enjoys gardening, good food, good bourbon, and good friends.