Roosevelt Culinary Arts

Salad and Dressings with Chef Jenny Breen

We all want to be healthy. But sometimes it’s hard to get excited about eating whole foods and fresh vegetables when there are so many other processed options vying for our taste buds’ attention.

This week, we had a wonderful lesson in how to eat healthy and delicious food from Chef and Educator Jenny Breen. She introduced the Roosevelt culinary arts and health careers students to new ingredients and flavors and taught us how to make our own flavorful and delicious salad dressings.

As Chef Jenny explained, dressings and sauces are one of the cornerstones of cooking delicious, fresh food at home. In addition to salads, they are a fast and easy way to flavor just about anything, from roasted veggies, to soups, to marinading meats, and beyond. A dressing is a balance of oil (fat), acid (often vinegar), emulsifier (often mustard), salt, sweet, and other flavors. (Keep reading below for her miso vinaigrette recipe!)

One way to use a dressing is with a quick sauté/stir fry of greens. The culinary arts students learned how to pull the kale from the fibrous rib and then quickly cook them with ginger in sesame and olive oil over high heat. Once the greens wilt and turn bright green, they are ready to be removed from the heat and tossed with the vinaigrette and toasted almonds.

Most of the students had never tried kale or miso before, and many were initially skeptical of even tasting the salad. However, after one bite, every single student agreed that it was delicious, and the entire bowl quickly disappeared!

After the lesson from Chef Jenny, students created a salad bar for themselves and teachers from the building. We added quinoa and brown rice, various greens and beans, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, as well as the miso vinaigrette and a homemade ranch dressing.

Many thanks to Chef Jenny Breen for sharing her time and expertise with us. We are better cooks and healthier eaters for the experience!

You can find the recipes from this post and many other delicious dishes in Chef Jenny’s cookbook, Cooking Up the Good Life. Here is her greens and miso vinaigrette recipe (printable version):