CSA Cooking: Shredded Everything Salad

I have a problem with produce management. A big part of the issue is that when confronted by a lovely array of fresh vegetables at a farmers market, I forget entirely what it is I already have at home and fill my totes with more delicious things. Add an occasional CSA share to the situation and it’s madness.

Happily, I have a relatively simple solution for the overabundance. A giant shredded salad. The genius is two-fold. First, it takes all the difficulty out of eating a giant homemade salad because the bulk of the prep work is already done. Second, it keeps for about a week, so you can make a truly giant batch and eat it for days.

You start by pulling out all the sturdy vegetables you have in your fridge. In the case of this recent batch, that included radishes*, small white turnips*, sugar snap peas, fennel, green onions, cucumber, and cabbage (other good additions include green beans, golden beets, red and green peppers, carrots, celery, and asparagus).

Once you have a nice selection of veg, start chopping. You can use a food processor fitted with a slicing or shredding blade, but I find that a sharp knife and one of these inexpensive handheld slicers is all the gear I need for something like this. Your only goal is to cut the vegetables thinly and in relatively similarly sized pieces.

I tend to keep the finished salad in a big ziptop bag, so that I can squeeze the air out after portioning out a serving, but a big bowl with a tight-fitting lid also works. We eat it heaped on top of greens if they’re handy, or tossed with feta, cooked farro, and a drizzle of vinaigrette.

If Scott needs something to take to work for lunch, I make a simple batch of tuna salad and pack it on top of a bowl of this shredded salad. When he’s ready to eat, he stirs the tuna into the vegetables and it serves as both protein and a dressing of sorts. When in need of a potluck or picnic contribution, I dress it the same way I would cole slaw and it is good.

*Both from my June Philly Foodworks share.

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