The 3 Types of French Salads You MUST Know! (Video 1: The Simple Salad)

Ready to master the art of French salads once and for all? Welcome to my exclusive 3-part series where you’ll learn the secrets to all three foundational types of salads in classic French cooking!

In France, a “salad” isn’t just one thing. There are three core categories that every home cook and chef knows, and understanding them will completely change how you approach salads. Over the next three videos, we will master each one together.

In Part 1, we begin with the most fundamental and elegant type: the “Salade Simple” or Simple Salad. To demonstrate its perfection, I’ll teach you how to make an incredible Roasted Radicchio Salad with a Creamy Horseradish Dressing. You’ll learn how to balance bold flavors and create a truly memorable dish from just a few ingredients.

🥗 THE COMPLETE FRENCH SALAD SERIES 🥗
Part 1: The Simple Salad (You Are Here!) – Learn the foundation with this Roasted Radicchio Recipe.
Part 2: The Rice Salads The Composed Salad (Salade Composée) – [Link Coming Soon! SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss it!]
Part 3: The Composed Salad (Salade Composée – [Link Coming Soon!]

What Makes this French Simple Salad Special:
A Radicchio Salad which a light roasting for a depth and flavor like no other.
The essentials for building a horseradish dressing in minutes
And tips for selecting the types of ingredients to get the flavor profile, texture and depth you want!
*Wilting the Radicchio under the broiler for a great, unique flavor.
*A creamy horseradish dressing that takes just minutes to make.
Nuts and garlic chips to add a new texture to every bite.

Recipe: Roasted Radicchio Salad w/ Horseradish Dressing
Ingredients:
Head of Radicchio
Champagne Vinegar
Premium Vinegar
Cayenne Pepper
Mustard
Heavy cream
Toasted pine nuts
Walnuts
Olive oil
Sea salt
Garlic chives
Black pepper

Download the recipe card: https://www.thefrenchcookingacademy.com/recipes/radicchio-salad-with-creamy-horseradish-dressing

Timestamps:
0:00 – Welcome to the French Salad Series!
0:52 – The 3 Types of French Salads Explained
1:50 – Making the Creamy Horseradish Dressing
3:15 – How to Prepare the Radicchio
5:30 – The Secret to Roasting Radicchio Perfectly
9:00 – Plating & Serving Your “Salade Simple”
10:15 – What’s Coming in Part 2!

If you want to master all three types of French salads, make sure you SUBSCRIBE and hit the notification bell 🔔 so you’re the first to know when Part 2 and 3 are released! Leave a comment below and tell me your favorite type of salad!

#frenchcooking #saladrecipe #radicchio

🎓 MASTER THE HEART OF FRENCH COOKING: SAUCES!
Love the creamy horseradish dressing in this video? That’s just the beginning. Sauces are the foundation of all French cuisine. If you’re ready to gain true confidence in the kitchen and create restaurant-quality dishes at home, my “Master French Sauces” course is your next step.
Click here to enroll and learn the 5 French Mother Sauces:
👉 https://www.thefrenchcookingacademy.com/master-french-sauces-at-home

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Welcome back to the kitchen everybody. Now salads, salads and salads. These are the things that we’re eating in France when the weather is really hot and it is the case. A lot of heat wave in Europe in some part of America and this is the time where the French eat very light. This is surprising because we think, oh, we only eat butter and cream. But no, in fact, we do like our salads as well. But in French cooking, what does it mean to eat a salad? There’s actually a bit of a definition in there. And this is what we’re going to be covering in this series of video. where I’m going to be explaining the three main types of salads exist. The simple types of salads, the rice salads and then the salad composite aka the mixed salad or the composed salad. Three different type that you may make in three different way and with different level of complexity. We’re going to be starting of course here with the first one which is the easiest of all which is a simple salad. Let’s go. Now the term simple salad or salad sample comes from of course the esophic is a bit of a guide here on the channel. It is a bit of the the mentor that I’m using for guidance. So the definition of the simple salad is very straightforward. We talk in French cooking about a salad sample or a simple salad when it is something that is just based on a type of lettuce such as this one which is a radish which is my favorite that we’re going to be using. But all the green lettuce of all kind pictures on the screen and there’s all kinds of lettuce you can buy are all part of the simple salad mixed with a simple dressing. Depending on how tough the leaves are or fragile, you’re going to have different types of dressing that you can use. But lettuce is not the only thing. A simple salad also refers to as a potato salad, a green bean salad, a grated carrot salad, the celery salad. All of these are called the salad samp because it is only mostly the one main ingredient and a dressing. Okay. So when you hear in French cooking the salad sample this is what it means. So sometimes using a little guide a cookbook or I’m using the s coffee get good kinire to give you some guidance to see what works and what should go with that is very very important. So, what we’re going to do here, we’re going to be making a simple salad using just a little bit of radichure with a very specific creamy dressed based on horseradish. Now, horseseradish is one of my favorites. I really think it is an underused kind of root. If you have it fresh, you can grate it into your dressing. It goes great with anything like end dive chori or here radichio something that is tough a bit of a bitterness or a bit of a bite. Okay. And this is what we’re going to do here. And I’m going to show you a bit of my special recipe where we’re going to be serving this wilted under the grill with some nuts with a dressing for something very elegant. So let’s look at the recipe. So let’s begin the recipe. As always we’re going to gather all the ingredients that we need. This is the mislas. You always measure everything and remember what I said, simple salad equals the main ingredients. So this is a type of lettuce. This is a salad trees in French. I’ll put that on the screen. In Italian is the radichio. One of my favorite that we’re going to be use a simple item. And all of these is for the dressing. So really have two elements. You’ve got your lettuce, you got your dressing. We’re going to be serving the radishue wilted with olive oil with that horseradish dressing. And we’re going to be beginning by making the dressing because you want to have it kind of nice and cold in the fridge when it is time to serve. Okay. So, before we do and work with the radish on here, I’m going to put it in the fridge for now and we’re going to whip this up very quickly. Now, if you’re looking for a salad that is different, that you want to serve that is not difficult with a bit of flare, this is it. Okay. And this uh dressing, by the way, is something that is part of our sauce course that I’ve made a long time ago and I really liked it and that’s what I want to make it again. So, we’re going to be starting with having all the horseradish. So, the horseradish the best is if you have it fresh. Okay? You’re going to grate it, but this is something from a jar because I’m sure that you’re not going to have per se horseradish in your garden. So, we start with the horseseradish. There’s 20 grams in there and it depends how strong your sish is and depending on how much uh strength you want in there. But the first thing we’re going to do, okay, is to mix these two. Very simple. So, we got a beautiful color on here. We’re going to follow with a little bit of cayenne pepper. So, touch of it and not too much otherwise it’s going to be really really burning. And then we’re going to have the cream. So, the cream uh you can put about four to five tablespoon. So you go, you count. Once you’re done on here, you’re going to take a whisk and like when you’re doing a whipped cream, you’re going to be beating your cream like this until you get some kind of a semi thick kind of consistency. So this is the trick. We use the cream very liquid. It’s a pure cream or double cream or heavy cream. And we’re going to get the the consistency that we want just by beating the cream. So, a bit of elbow grease, but very quickly, you see that the dressing starts to thicken. That goes very, very fast. So, the the big mistake, do not overwhip. You can keep it like this in the fridge. And when you’re ready, you can adjust how firm it is by giving a a big whisk like this. So, that should be enough on here. I’m going to show you. Okay, you got a nice consistency. Now, vinegar is always present in all kinds of dressing. This is white wine vinegar. Do not use alcohol vinegar. This is a a champion, a premium vinegar. And typically a teaspoon or even half a teaspoon is enough. It goes very very fast to add that tanginess. You can use the whisk if you want. And we’re going to mix that in. So, that’s it. Done. In the fridge. And then we take off the radich. The dressing is in the fridge. And now we can take off the radio. The good thing with the rishio, uh, there’s not much to do with it and you don’t want to lose much of it because it is really gold and it’s such sometime an expensive type of lettuce. So, we’re going to need to kind of remove one layer of these leaves on here. And you can, if you want, some people will kind of remove the core with a knife and go around like that and remove the core. Uh, but we’re just going to go very simple here and try to detach leaves after starting from the bottom on here and delicately. I’m going to try to remove the little cup and we’re going to keep them. We’re not throwing them away because, you know, they’re very important. So, I’m going to go around and you see it’s nice and clean on here and I may just remove that when it’s a little bit damaged and to make sure we got something clean for isolate. Hold on. So, I’ve got the heart here of the register is nice and clean. I’m going to rinse it a little bit because there’s some untidy bits. And then we’re going to quarter it. And then I’ve got these cups uh and I’m not throwing them away. Some of them I’ve got a bit of a damage on here. So you may kind of remove the damaged parts and we can do a chiffon that is really kind of thinly slice. You can use it as a sprinkle on the plate itself. You can put this through another type of lettuce to give some color or in a dish or anything like that. It is really really useful. So we’re going to use absolutely everything. Now let’s cut this. But before I’m going to just rinse it a little bit very gently under running water. So my piece of lettuce here, the TV is already cho back. Make sure you pat it dry. And from here there’s different schools and depending on how you want to cut it. And the thing not to do is to kind of chop it to oblivion into many kind of pieces. Some people we see you got the corn here. Some people like to have slices. So like this kind of thick slices. So you’re going to go like this like chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck. Go around and have these thick slices. You can put them in the oven. You can roast them. Same technique that we’re going to be using here. But to start with, I just like to do quarters. So, if you’re not confident, you don’t want to do the cing first, uh, we’re just going to be slicing through the whole thing, okay, to reveal the inside. We can remove that leaf and keep it for later. And same thing, I’m going to cut this again in half. So, put this in here. And then we got our quarters. Now, if they are not uh small enough or anything like that, you can cut them smaller. But what I’m going to do here, I’m going to kind of remove the core. And that’s what I like to do and leave this as a little bit of a cup and maybe get rid of that one here. So I’m kind of gently removing some of the core. Don’t remove everything because it’s going to really really fall apart. And you can if you want just remove that little part on here and make it a bit open like that. Okay. See that’s kind of really appetizing kind of way because we’re going to want to put this with a drizzle of oil, roast it in the oven now. So, it’s going to have this wilting kind of little not not charcoal, but really that nice effect. And then we’re going to use this for our salad. It’s going to have a really good effect. So, it’s up to you. If you want these quarters, something smaller, something bigger, if you want slices, it doesn’t matter. This is what I do. So, here we are. We’ve made the dressing. We’ve prepared the radial quarters. We’re going to drizzle with olive oil and wield them or roast them very briefly into the oven. And what’s left here is the nuts. We’re going to use walnuts. We can leave them as is. You can toast them as you want, but we’re going to kind of toast these little pine nuts a little bit for some good effect. That’s what I’m going to do now while the oven is preheating. So, you can preheat about 220° C. Now, to toast the pine nuts, I’ve added the walnut. Typically, I don’t do it, but since we were here, I’m using uh, you know, a carbon steel pan, kind of medium heat. I’m going to wait like a good 5 minutes. I’m I’m keeping an eye like a hulk on these because you don’t want to have them to burn. And you want that kind of nice light brown color. When it’s like nice and light brown, you stop. I’m done with the pine nuts in the moment. So, you can see what I mean. A light coloring. That’s all what we want. I’m going to put this in my old bowl. And then we’ve got everything ready. So, we’re going to start the wilting or roasting of the trees or the radich. And we’re going to be ready to serve. Now, for the oven. So, 220° is great. You can use a normal setting for the oven, but if you have the grill, uh, is the best. And what we want to do here, we want to take some olive oil. And I’m going to go through these little crannies and things like this everywhere. Okay? With a little bit of salt. So use a nice quality salt. I’m using a salt flake or sea salt typically. And if you want a little bit of pepper. Now the problem with these lettuce, the radish, the trebies, if you leave it too long, it’s really going to get brown very, very fast. So, what I like to do is just to give it a little bit of a blast of heat, but stay in front of the oven. You may have some traces going to go a little bit brown, but we want to keep some of that red color. So, in the oven, under the grill. So, I’m going to do here one or two minutes max and then take them out and we serve. So, here we are. I’m done. So, virtually 2 minutes under the grill and look at the result. So, wilted for me means that you’ve got these edges. You see how it goes it goes brown when it cooks immediately lose immediately lose its color. So you it’s fine to have a little bit like that on the edges. It’s nice and warm. You know it’s been into the the oven. It’s had a blast of it. But you can still see it is already chew. You still have the colors, the whites, the red, and a little bit of the brown. Uh if you cook it too long, everything is becoming like that, like brown all over the place. It’s going to look like nothing. So now ready to serve. Let’s get all the ingredients ready and we’re going to plate. So my radicho are on the plate. I’ve put the nuts like this here and there. We’ve got a little bit of dressing. And from the plating that you have here, you need to have a little bit of decoration. And then we have the dressing. So make sure you got everything you need. If you want some little green decoration, uh have it there. Of course, you’ve got the sauce on here. And I’m going to add a tiny drizzle, you know, of olive oil in here. A bit of style. And I’ve got some balsamic as an extra. A little touch I think of this good quality balsamiti in there because when you’re on the salad you you want dressing. Absolutely. And then the sauce. Okay. It’s it’s quite thick as you can see. So the drizzle like going around on the plate is might be a little bit hard. So what I’ve maybe want to do is a bit more of a drizzle this way. Okay. following the lines of of of kind of that plating without making too much of a slop because otherwise it’s going to be you see too much like this. And if you really want to add uh some more, you can put more on the side and stuff like but I’m going to keep it like this. And to finish, I’m going to have uh these garlic chives that going to place on the the top of the whites here. So, just shows that you’ve, you know, you’ve done some kind of little effort. Okay. And we’re going to finish with a little bit of pepper. So, like when you’re in a restaurant, you know, they come, you know, do you want a bit of black pepper on your plate? Yes. A little bit. And that’s it. Now, very quickly, let’s do a an eating test. I’ve I’ve tried this before, so I know it’s good already. Um, but how do you if you wonder, you’ve got the sauce drizzled everywhere, and you can take the whole thing. You want to cut a large piece like that. and with the nuts and stuff like this. And boom, one mouthful. It’s crunchy. It’s walty. It’s seasoned. It’s got all the things that you want. Just one last one for the road. But I actually forgot how good that remove the heartbeat and love it. So that completes our first episode on our little salad miniseries where we see the salad some. Next time we’re going to see something equally simple, which is the rice salad and a synonym of the old salad bar from the 80s. But we will discover that there are actually quite a few interesting rice salad. And there are a good way when you don’t know what to make when it’s a hot weather, you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen. You will see there’s plenty option available for you. I hope you join me next time for that video on the French Cooking Academy. And don’t forget to subscribe if you’re interested by the source course that we have to make these sorts of things. Look at the video description. going to put a link in there. Okay, I say goodbye and have a good day. Take care all. Bye-bye, [Music] baby. And you’re giving me windfly. [Music] Baby, you me up my appetite.