Spring Dinner Salad with Honey-Mustard Vinaigrette

Made with Savoy cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and prosciutto with a honey-mustard vinaigrette, this spring dinner salad is easy and delicious.

I love it when I see local chefs creating new dishes inspired by traditional foods. Take the classic New England boiled dinner. At Moxy restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, chef Matt Louis prepares corned brisket, pickled carrot, and crispy potatoes in cabbage leaf “wraps.” And at Puritan & Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, chef Will Gilson has experimented with a boiled dinner salad in which baby heirloom brassicas are arranged, leaf by leaf, among fresh herbs, carrots, and rosy slices of corned beef in an presentation that resembles a still life more than the most humble Yankee fare. I had those two dishes in mind when I set out to create a hearty but simple spring dinner salad that’s inspired by those same ingredients. Knowing that corned beef can be hard to come by beyond Saint Patrick’s Day and Easter, I substituted thinly sliced prosciutto, which had the added benefit of not needing to be cooked.

Here’s how to make the salad in step-by-step photos. Just want the recipe? Head on over to the Spring Diner Salad Recipe. Start out with your salad ingredients: a medium-size head of Savoy cabbage, baby carrots (I used multi-colored ones I found at the market), small new potatoes, chives, peas, radishes, and prosciutto.

Set a steamer basket in a 3- to 4-quart pot. Fill the pot with enough water to come just up to the basket and add the salt to the water (for added flavor, use a combination of half water and half white wine if you happen to have a partly-used bottle in the refrigerator—don’t open a fresh bottle just for this). Meanwhile, set a bowl of ice water next to the stove. Add the potatoes (12 ounces of them) to the steamer basket and set over high heat. Once the water starts steaming, cook the potatoes, covered, for 10 minutes. Add the carrots (10 ounces) to the basket and cook until just tender (not mushy), 8 to 10 minutes more.

Immediately drain the potatoes and carrots and transfer them to the ice water to stop the cooking, then drain and set aside. Separate the leaves of the cabbage using your hands and tear them into small pieces, working around the thick center of each leaf. You can leave the smallest core leaves whole. Arrange them in a large bowl. Cut the radishes into very thin slices (a mandoline works best here) an d arrange those in a pile on one side of the bowl. Arrange the peas (1/2 cup) and chopped chives (1/4 cup) in other piles. Fill in the remainder of the outside of the bowl with the potatoes and carrots, then arrange the prosciutto (4 to 6 ounces, depending on your preference) in the center. Now make the dressing. I like to make mine in a jar and just shake it together, rather than whisking the oil slowly into the vinegar base. I find it easier. So, in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the 1 large clove of minced garlic, 6 tablespoons of honey mustard, 1 1/2 tablespoons of vinegar, and 1/2 cup of olive oil.

Cover and shake well to combine, then add salt and pepper to taste.

If desired, add an additional 2 or 3 teaspoons of honey to balance out the flavor—you want the flavor be sweet-tangy, and different mustards have varying levels of sweetness. Serve the dressing alongside the salad and allow your guests to serve themselves, taking a bit of this and a bit of that.

Do you have a go-to spring dinner salad recipe? Let us know in the comments! GET THE RECIPESpring Dinner Salad with Honey-Mustard Vinaigrette