Quick Potato Salad

On October 23, 2026October 23, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

I didn’t become a fan of potato salads until I realized that my homemade ones didn’t have to resemble the typical store-bought version, heavily coated in a mayonnaise-based dressing. If I put a creamy dressing on potato salad, it’s usually one of the variations I shared last week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. I far prefer the tangy combination of yogurt and sour cream over the cloying richness of mayonnaise when making Potato Salad with Pickles. Likewise, Sweet Potato-Mushroom Salad benefits from the tart-and-sweet flavor Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing.

The potato salad recipe I share in this week’s column pulls together flavors from some of these recipes but mostly stands out for its ease and speed, which make it a staple of my personal boating meals and my Fine Dining: Front Country workshops. Ready-to-serve artichoke hearts and olives add zing. Carrots travel well, but I often substitute other fresh ingredients I need to use from the cooler: bell pepper, snap beans or peas, asparagus, cucumber, scallions and more. Hard-boiled eggs provide instant protein.
Learn to make Quick Potato Salad

Creamy Salad Dressing Base and Variations

On October 21, 2026October 21, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

I love homemade salad dressings. They’re easy, quick, and cheap. They don’t have the preservatives, extreme sugar or salt, and other add-ins so common in commercially bottled dressings. If I could convince you to ditch one collection of condiments in your fridge and make your own from scratch, it would be salad dressings.

The recipe I shared last week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon shows you just how easy and versatile salad dressings can be. It also makes it clear that creamy dressings can be dairy-free and vegan friendly. Choose just one variation and combine it with the lemony dressing base. Or mix a couple of variations to, say, sweeten the bitterness of tahini with honey or enhance yogurt with the bite of mustard.

These are just some of the combinations we play with in my salad dressing workshops. From there, we replace the lemon juice with various vinegars and add dozens of other ingredients to create a full collection of dressings.
Learn to make Creamy Salad Dressing Base and Variations

Tomato and Herb Salad Dressing

On May 16, 2026May 16, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, salads2 Comments

In winter months, when the ground is frozen and blanketed in snow, I rarely buy and eat fresh greens. But as the soil warms and spring greens sprout in my garden, I start eating salads—daily. The first ones feature mounds of greens and herbs sparsely dotted with other vegetables. When my lettuces bolt and turn bitter, tomatoes, cucumbers, and snap beans take over. Beets, carrots, and kale, plus a small flush of spinach, bump up against the first snowfall.

This type of seasonal salad building means you rarely find a mix of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber in my bowl. But as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, you can still enjoy flavor pairings produced in different seasons. The secret is simple: make your own salad dressing. Homegrown frozen cherry tomatoes and dried basil have far more flavor than the fresh options you could buy at the store right now. In an easy dressing, they give summery flair to spring greens.
Learn to make Tomato and Herb Salad Dressing

Meatless Taco Salad

On September 25, 2025September 25, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, salads2 Comments

Sometimes you want salads to be simple and light, especially when served alongside an entree. But when the salad is the meal, it’s time to pile on the layers and hit as many food groups as possible. That’s the idea behind the hearty, filling, plant-based taco salad I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

I’ve long loved this salad because it has so many delicious ingredients that it doesn’t need the ground beef often found in such a one-bowl meal. Kidney beans and cheese provide plenty of protein, and the crisp tortilla chips and other fresh layers supply contrasting textures. The vegetables become the salad’s stars, and I pile on as many as my garden is producing—roasted garlic, corn, cherry tomatoes, greens, onion tops, and cilantro—with avocado, lime and green olives that I can’t grow in Montana for bonus fun. With so many fresh ingredient options and a homemade salad dressing built around my favorite salsa, I could eat this salad every day and never tire of it.
Learn to make Meatless Taco Salad

Spinach Salad with Cranberry Sauce Dressing

On November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

Cranberry sauce goes on so many dishes on the holiday table that it’s always worth making extra. If you have more left over than you anticipated, the recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon converts the sauce into a salad dressing.

I love the tartness of cranberries so much that as a teenager, I would thin cranberry sauce with oil and vinegar to make a personalized salad dressing right at the Thanksgiving table. The dressing and salad recipe in my column simply formalizes the process. So you don’t have to wait for leftovers to enjoy it. If you made Orange-Infused Cranberry Sauce to serve with your feast and have a palate-cleansing salad to accompany the meal, whip up this dressing straightaway.
Learn to make Spinach Salad with Cranberry Sauce Dressing

Three-Bean Salad with Fresh Herbs

On September 19, 2024September 19, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

By the time the garden’s snap beans are ready, many of its salad greens have gone to seed. But that doesn’t mean I stop making salads. Instead, my salads become heartier, with varieties of snap and dried beans and fresh herbs standing in for greens. I share one of my favorite renditions, a three-bean salad with homemade Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing, this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Like all salads, you can adapt this one to the seasons and the ingredients you have on hand. My favorite cheeses for this salad include Cold-Smoked Mozzarella and Homemade Farmer’s Cheese. When I’ve put the garden to bed for the season, I still make this salad with the Classic Dilly Beans or the Szechuan-Peppered Snap Beans in my pickling cookbook. When even my herbs have died back for the year, my stockpile of homegrown and dried herbs provides plenty of flavor.
Learn to make Three-Bean Salad with Fresh Herbs

Green Goddess Salad Dressing

On September 6, 2024September 5, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

I’m such a lover of all things pickled and fermented that most of my salad dressings start with vinegar and oil. So when I was asked to create some condiments for a large dinner a few years back, I knew I needed to branch out not just with a creamy choice but also one that would appeal to as many dietary needs as possible: vegan, gluten free, keto friendly, and more. That’s why the salad dressing I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon eschews the original mayonnaise and other dairy-heavy renditions in favor of a dairy-free, avocado-based blend.

Avocados have grown in popularity as a nondairy fat replacement in baked goods—the same way I often replace oil and butter in quick breads with applesauce. I occasionally use avocados in this way, especially when making desserts for vegan friends. But I typically eat avocados sliced fresh, such as on corn tortillas with Crispy Sprouted Lentils, or turn them into Grilled Onion Guacamole. I even have a recipe for pickling them in my pickling cookbook. If you like tangy salads, try the pickled avocado slices in the green goddess dressing.
Learn to make Green Goddess Salad Dressing

Watermelon and Feta Salad

On July 11, 2024July 11, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

The recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon gets right to the heart of summer, pairing sweet, juicy watermelon with tangy, salty feta cheese. Like many of my favorite recipes that use feta, you can buy a high-quality block in brine for this salad. I like a creamy Bulgarian sheep’s milk feta, which holds its shape well, or the sharp taste of Greek sheep’s milk feta alongside the sweet melon.

My favorite pairing is homemade Dry-Salted Feta. Even when I use whole cow’s milk instead of milk from goats or sheep, it has far superior flavor and texture to the crumbly, dry store-bought American feta made from skimmed cow’s milk. The hardest part about making feta is holding the milk at a steady temperature for a couple of hours—a challenge that is far easier amid summer’s heat than during freezing winter months.
Learn to make Watermelon and Feta Salad

Raspberry Vinaigrette

On July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

My favorite salads might start with a bed of greens, but then I pile on the vegetables and other toppings. Because the layers give the salad so much flavor and texture, I rarely bother with more than a simple dressing of vinegar or citrus juice, oil, and an emulsifier like mustard or garlic.

But a three- or four-ingredient salad can handle an intensely flavored dressing, like the one I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. This berry dressing can turn the bed of greens, early onions, and the last of my storage carrots into a delicious lunch or side salad.

You can blend fresh raspberries into this vinaigrette, but it’s also ideal for using up the pulp left after making Roasted Raspberry Syrup or the Roasted Raspberry-Thyme Shrub in my cookbook, The Complete Guide to Pickling.
Learn to make Raspberry Vinaigrette

Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad

On June 14, 2024June 14, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, saladsLeave a comment

Once I accepted that I was never going to justify housing a giant couscoussière in my tiny Montana kitchen and using its vastness, sized for the average Moroccan family, to feed my household of two, instant couscous became a staple grain not just at home but for lakeside picnics and onboard dinners. We recently wrapped up a two-week sailing adventure aboard The Blue Mule in the San Juan and Gulf Islands, and the couscous recipes I’ve been sharing in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon were part of our cruising menu.

The little grains cook so well in just-boiled water that I keep a collapsible silicone container with a tightly sealing lid in my galley box. I pour the couscous into it, add a pat of butter and sprinkling of cinnamon and salt, and then pour JetBoil-heated water on top and seal the container. For dinner before an evening sail on Flathead Lake, I use the same technique but boil the water on my kitchen stove and take it to the lake in a thermos.
Learn to make Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad with Pour-Over Cinnamon Couscous