Pairings | Chicken caesar salad
Which wine pairs best with salad?
Asking which wine to pair with salad is a bit like asking about what wine to match with meat or fish. There's no single answer. It depends on the vegetables you use, what other ingredients it contains and what type of dressing you use.
That said, salad is normally a light dish so a full-bodied wine - white or red - is almost certainly going to overwhelm it. Unless you’re talking about steak and salad in which case it’s a question of matching the steak not the leaves. Or salads for a barbecue when the marinades used for the meat will probably have more of an impact than the dressings.
The problem ingredient in salads is vinegar which can throw wines off balance, accentuating the tannins in serious reds and making whites seem excessively sweet. You can get round this by including a bit of cream in the dressing or whisking in some meat juices, especially the juice from a roasted chicken. Rice and cider vinegar are also less harsh than wine vinegar
Other tricky ingredients are raw onion or garlic, best dealt with, I find, by pairing them with dry whites or rosés that have a high level of acidity.
Wines that have an overtly fruity character tend to match well with salad especially if it contains fruit such as peach or apricot (try a fruity Chardonnay, Colombard or Viognier) or cherries (good with a fruity red such as a Gamay or Pinot Noir)
If there’s more than one salad on the table good all-rounders are fruity whites such as Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc and fruity rosés
Wine pairings for 10 popular salads
Chicken caesar salad
Reasonably easy so long as it doesn’t have too much of an anchovy kick. A lightly oaked Chardonnay is a good match, a slightly fuller-bodied one if the chicken is chargrilled. Oaked Sauvignon Blanc and dry rosé also work well
Greek salad
Here the dominant ingredients are feta and olives which tend to work best with a citrussy white. Sauvignon Blanc - or Rueda - is fine but why not try a Greek Assyrtiko?
Salade Niçoise
The locals would drink dry Provençal rosé and I can’t think of a better match. Although Cotes du Rhône rosés are quite a bit cheaper.
Spinach and bacon salad with blue cheese dressing
Ah. Blue cheese dressing. Very tricky! I’d personally go for a soft red like a medium-bodied Merlot but you could equally well drink a white. What’s needed I think is a slight touch of sweetness - a German Kabinett Riesling should fit the bill. Or an off-dry one from New Zealand or Washington State
Goats cheese salad with asparagus or beetroot
Goats cheese overrides all other ingredients when it comes to salads, even powerfully flavoured ones like asparagus and beetroot. Sauvignon Blanc is the classic match and hard to better, I find.
Warm pigeon, duck or chicken liver salad
Once you introduce meat into a salad I reckon you’re better off to think in terms of reds than whites. Pinot Noir is the obvious pairing but Loire reds and other light-bodied reds from e.g. south-west France work well too.
Thai beef salad and other Asian salads
Great with Australian riesling as you can see from these matches of the week here and here. Gruner Veltliner is another good pairing
Seafood, prawn or shrimp salad, crab salad
Perhaps depend more than any other salad on the dressing. If the salad is built round some super-fresh shellfish like crab or prawns (shrimp) I’d go for a crisp minerally white like a Sancerre, Albarino, Picpoul de Pinet or Italian whites such as Pecorino and good quality Pinot Grigio. If you’re using a 1000 island dressing off-dry riesling should see you through. For tomato-based dressings see below.
Tomato-based salads
Raw tomatoes are supposed to pose problems for wine, tomato salad even more so though I’ve never found it much of a problem. Dry rosé, crisp whites and Sauvignon Blanc generally hit the spot though I generally go for an Italian white like a Verdicchio with a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad or pappa al pomodoro
Pasta salads
More often than not these are dressed with mayonnaise and are therefore quite mild in taste. I’d go for a smooth dry white like a Soave, Gavi, unoaked Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc
And here are five more:
Crisp duck salad with Fielding estate riesling
Layered tomato and egg salad with Verdejo
Pork, chilli, coconut and gapi salad with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
Rocket and parmesan salad with dry amontillado sherry
Smoked duck and blood orange salad with Chilean gewurztraminer
And don't forget, beer and cider pair well with salad too, sometimes better than wine!
The best wine pairings with Caesar salad
As with most salads Caesar salad is all about the dressing which on the face of it sounds tricky, anchovies being notoriously difficult to match with wine.
In fact by the time you’ve whizzed them up with an egg yolk and plenty of parmesan you’ve got a creamy dressing which while tangy isn’t too much of a wine killer - and there are always the croutons to offset it. I’d still be inclined to stick to a dry white or rosé though rather than a red.
The only variable is whether the salad contains chicken and even then it’s not likely to affect your choice too much. If it’s charred it can handle a fuller-bodied white.
* crisp dry whites such as Chablis and other unoaked chardonnays, chenin blanc (not the richer, off-dry style), dry Italian whites such as Gavi or a good Pinot Grigio or a Spansih Albarino
* if the chicken is chargrilled you could partner it with a slightly richer chardonnay. An oaked white from the Douro region of Portugal could also work well.
* a crisp dry rosé from Provence or elsewhere in Southern France
If you fancy a beer try a Belgian-style blonde ale or golden ale like Duval which also makes a great match
For other salad pairings see Which Wine Pairs Best With Salad
Image © viennetta14 - Fotolia.com
10 great beer and food matches for summer
We all know a beer goes down well with a ploughmans and that it’s a great drink to wash down a barbecue but here are 10 more unusual pairings which should liven up your summer drinking.
Crab and witbier
My own favourite, I confess. Doesn’t matter if the crab is simply dressed or gussied up Thai-style, it works brilliantly though I prefer the Belgian style to the more banana-y Bavarian one with seafood.
Ham and parsley paté with English bitter
Cold ham and English bitter is a classic but this gives the pairing a bit of a twist (and is a great way to use up some leftover ham into the bargain). You simply cut up about 140g of cooked ham (smoked is nice) and whizz it in a food processor until finely chopped. Add an equal amount of unsalted butter and a couple of tablespoons of water, whizz until smooth then season with 1 - 2 tsp of English or Dijon mustard and fold through some finely chopped parsley and chives.
Kebabs and lager
What else do you drink with a kebab? Make your own straight off the barbecue, stuffed into warm pitta bread with lettuce, onion, houmus and a good squeeze of lemon juice and accompany with a good pils or Kolsch.
Prawn, fennel and leek risotto with wheat beer
A summery seafod and herb (dill) risotto which we found went really well with Colomba, a light, aromatic Corsican wheat beer. Would also pair well with a witbier or bière blanche
Joloffe rice and IPA
Joloffe rice is a spicy West-African rice dish that’s a bit like a paella and makes great outdoor eating. I’ve successfully drunk a light English bitter with it but would usually go for an IPA or an amber ale.
Beer-can chicken and amber lager
Yes, you may cook the chicken on a bog standard can of lager but the finished dish deserves something better! With its spicy dry rub and accompanying BBQ sauce or salsa you’ll find it goes really well with a Viennese-style lager or amber ale.
Chicken Caesar salad with a blonde or golden ale
The creamy, tangy sauce makes this much-loved salad a great match with a golden ale or lager such as Duvel or Schiehallion.
Cheesecake and cherry (or raspberry) beer
A fantastic match so long as you top the cheesecake with similar berries to the ones in the beer. (The great thing about matching beer and food is that you can mirror the flavours in the dish. That doesn’t work with wine where the food tends to strip similar flavours out of the wine)
Bakewell tart and raspberry beer
Similar thinking. You pick the fruit flavour - in this case raspberries - out with the beer. If you live in the states there’s a wonderful one called Raspberry Tart from the New Glarus Brewing Co in Wisconsin but Lindemans Framboise will do nicely
Blueberry and peach beer jellies
A bit of a cheat as the beer is actually in the dish rather than paired with it but fruit beers make absolutely knock-out jellies that are perfect for summer desserts (find the recipe here.) Try two or three different kinds such as blueberry and peach beer, raspberry and cherry beer and mango and passionfruit beer - a real showstopper.
Food pairings for wheat beer II - hefeweizen, dunkelweizen and other German-style wheat beers
German wheat beers are sufficiently different from Belgian wheat beers to merit a separate post - so what are the best food matches for hefeweizen with their striking banana and clove flavours?
Of course some of the same pairings will work but in my view hefeweizen are better with richer, sweeter seafood dishes and pork than witbier. They’re also less spicy so less good with the citrus and herb flavours that work so well with witbiers.
Hefeweizen such as Schneider Weisse and Franziskaner
Weisswurst and pretzels - THE classic south German breakfast pairing
Any kind of cured pork: sausages with potato salad, smokey hams - and the accompanying pickles
Roast chicken or pork
Fried chicken or veal (wiener schnitzel)
Chicken caesar salad
Richer seafood such as scallops and lobster (I’m betting lobster rolls are particularly good)
Hot smoked salmon and sautéed salmon
Chicken-based Tex Mex dishes like burritos
Apple tarts and turnovers
Mark Dredge suggests banana cake and roast banana in his book Craft Beer World. And Saveur comes up with this recipe for banana pudding which I must say I like the look of.
Dunkelweizen
Some of the above pairings will work with the richer, malty flavours of dunkelweizen but I would put more emphasis on:
Smoked ham and bacon
American-style BBQ
Mole (the Mexican dish not a small furry creature)
Fried chicken, veal or pork with a tomato and pepper sauce
Matured cheeses such as Gouda and Parmesan
If you found this article useful take a look at my post on matching witbiers. And there’s a useful article by beer writer Ben McFarland here on matching wheat beers. Quoting yours truly, as it happens . . .
Image by Wolf-Henry Dreblow from Pixabay
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