To create the ultimate salad, you have to use your taste buds

You might feel like you’ve mastered the art of making a salad. However, your salad may not have achieved the ultimate balance of tastes. To achieve that perfect balance in your salad, you want to achieve the perfect balance between all of your ingredients.

To be salad conscious, you need to consider the sweet, sour, spicy, salty and bitter elements. Is the salad too salty, with bacon, cheese and olives? Or does it need a slightly tart note from the addition of lime or grapefruit? Is your spicy homemade sriracha overshadowing the more subtle flavor of bitter greens? Your taste buds can quickly answer these questions.

Before creating your salad, think about each ingredient and the category it belongs to. Then you can start building. Ideally, you want each taste to shine through in its own way. You don’t want the ingredients to overpower each other.

Read more: Vegetarian appetizers that are sure to please everyone

Try adding sweet, sour and spicy ingredients

Using sweet, spicy, and sour ingredients can help balance the flavors of your salad and satisfy your taste buds. When considering sweet toppings for a salad, consider fresh and dried fruits like apples, cranberries and mangoes. Or consider sweeter vegetables, like carrots, beets and sweet potatoes. Herbs like basil or sweet mint can also add a touch of sweetness. Also consider, if you marinate an ingredient in a sweet sauce like teriyaki, how that will integrate with the sweeter elements of the salad. This logic will also apply to the dressing.

When it comes to spiciness, chili pepper is an obvious spicy addition. However, it is essential to identify how other ingredients can warm up your salad, for example ginger, mustard, arugula, harissa paste, spices and seasonings. If you’re not a fan of spices, opt for milder options, like black pepper, and build your salad from there.

Sour salad ingredients may not be as physically apparent as sweet ingredients, but they can be extremely overpowering. Citrus and vinegar are common ingredients for salad dressings with a tangy, tangy twist. But acidity can also come from pickled ingredients. Before adding anything to your salad, check how sweet, spicy, or sour it is.

Don’t forget to add bitter and salty flavors

Savory ingredients may include cheese or seasoned proteins. Make sure not to add too many salty ingredients. Additionally, make sure your dressing isn’t too salty either. If everything in your salad is salty, it could create a meal with bites that taste like the sea.

Take this example: In a tomato, peach and burrata salad, the burrata is the key savory ingredient. Its rich flavor is balanced by sweet tomatoes, slightly tart peach and some added basil leaves for a peppery finish. The recipe is balanced by these different ingredients.

Bitter flavors are likely to be contributed by greens and other vegetables. Think dandelion greens, radicchio, Brussels sprouts, kale and lettuce. If you’ve ever had a bite of kale, you’ll know that it’s not delicious on its own. Instead, think of your bitter ingredients as something that will allow other flavors to shine.

To prepare the ultimate salad, you have to follow your taste buds. Perceptions of taste differ from person to person, regardless of culture. One person’s experience of gentleness may be very different from another’s. Taste each ingredient, experiment and trust yourself. Like playing the piano or learning a language, practice makes perfect.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.