Garden Salad with Lemon Dressing

Mid-January 2026. The cold settled. Single digits Tuesday morning. The car heater. The hat. The long underwear under work pants for the food bank shift. The same January as every January.

Tuesday food bank: chicken and rice soup. Yolanda made it. The soup was excellent. The line was long.

Wednesday La Cocina cohort 3 week two: sofrito and seasoning. Same lesson. Same rhythm. Janet, the Black-Puerto Rican woman who had been raised by her white grandmother, made her first sofrito. She tasted it at the end. She said, "Mrs. Carmen, this is what my mother's house smelled like when I visited when I was eight." I said, "Janet, the smell does not lie." She wrote it down.

Thursday Mami slept all day. Carmen the aide called. I drove over. I sat for three hours. Mami did not wake. Her breathing was steady. Her color was okay. Carmen the aide said, "Doña Carmen, this is happening more." I said, "I know." We sat together. We had become friends in the past year — Carmen the aide was a forty-five-year-old woman from Manchester named Carmen Rodriguez whose own mother had died in 2020 and who had said to me once, "Doña Carmen, I do this work because I cannot do it for my own mother anymore. I do it for yours." I had not forgotten that.

Friday Mami was awake for two hours. She ate a small amount of sopita. She said, "Carmen, the days are blurring." I said, "Mami, I know." She said, "Carmen, I am scared sometimes." I said, "Mami." She said, "Carmen, I am scared in the moment when I do not know the time. Then I figure out the time. Then I am okay. The not-knowing scares me." I said, "Mami, I will tell you the time whenever you ask. I will write the time on a board for you." She said, "Carmen, that is a good idea." I bought a small whiteboard Saturday. I put it on the wall next to her chair. I write the date and time on it three times a day. Carmen the aide updates it too. Mami can see it from her chair. She says, "Tuesday January twentieth, three PM," to herself sometimes when she wakes. The board is the anchor.

Sunday dinner: family. Twelve. I made arroz con pollo. Lucas asked for the version with the green olives because he had decided he liked olives. I made it with the olives. Wepa.

Sunday came, and twelve people needed feeding, and Lucas needed his olives — so the arroz con pollo was already decided. What the table also needed, with that many people and that much week behind me, was something clean and sharp to set alongside the rice: this garden salad with lemon dressing. The lemon cuts through the richness, the vegetables are forgiving, and it takes almost no time once the main dish is in the pot. After a week of sopita and sofrito and sitting in my mother’s apartment watching her breathe, I needed a recipe that let me be present at the table instead of in the kitchen. This was that recipe.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 8–10

Ingredients

1 large head romaine lettuce, chopped
1 small head green leaf lettuce, torn
2 medium tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup radishes, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Lemon Dressing:
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 large lemons)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small clove garlic, minced fine
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions

Make the dressing. In a small jar or bowl, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, minced garlic, honey, salt, pepper, and oregano. Shake or whisk vigorously until the dressing is emulsified. Taste and adjust salt or lemon as needed. Set aside.
Prep the greens. Chop the romaine and tear the green leaf lettuce into bite-sized pieces. Spin or pat dry thoroughly — wet greens will water down the dressing. Place in a large serving bowl.
Add the vegetables. Layer the tomato wedges, cucumber slices, red onion, shredded carrot, and radishes over the greens. Scatter the fresh parsley over the top.
Dress and toss. Just before serving, pour about 3/4 of the dressing over the salad. Toss gently until everything is lightly coated. Add more dressing as needed. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Garden Salad with Lemon Dressing — The Fresh Side That Made Room at the Table