It seems like such a simple category on the surface. A salad is, you know, a salad! Like a sandwich is a sandwich, right?

Like my 16-month-old daughter loves to say, “Nnnnnno!” While a quintessential version of those foods might have popped into your head as you read them, another second’s consideration reveals a glaring number of alternatives. 

A salad is not just lettuce decorated with bits of raw vegetables and laced with a dressing, just as a sandwich is not just coldcuts and cheese between slices of mayo-spread bread. In fact, even those definitions could be turned into a hundred different iterations each. Is it romaine or a spring mix? Tomatoes and cucumbers, or carrots and green onions? Is the dressing creamy, tangy, herby, sweet? 

All these questions are still just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce). We haven’t touched on croutons, nuts, cheeses, beans, eggs, meats, fruits, or any of the myriad options that can get tossed on a bed of greens — and we’re in the salady-salad zone yet, yet we dare not forget about coleslaws, potato salads, pasta salads, or even Jell-o “salads.” (I personally do not allow that last one to fit here (or anywhere, technically), but I promise I’m still Mennonite.)

What constitutes a sandwich is also something I’ve heard debated often in foodie circles. The premise again seems clear-cut, until you slice it a little differently. Sure, grilled cheese, muffaletta, turkey bacon ranch all work: hot, cold, meat or not, veggies or not, sauce or not. Stuff sandwiched between two slices of bread. 

But somehow it feels uncomfortable if you say you’re having sandwiches and then serve up burgers, even though they’re basically the same idea as pulled pork or hot ham & cheese. Hot dogs are in that same family … or are they, because is a hot dog a sandwich? Or what if you’re having an open-faced sandwich: is that an oxymoron if there’s only one piece of bread? And what if you take some regular sandwich fillings, and roll them into a tortilla; is a wrap a subcategory, or a whole new thing? 

Oh, the questions.

To make matters even worse, there are salad sandwiches. Go to a deli and ask for the chicken salad, and you could get a salad with chicken, or a sandwich with chicken salad. Or possibly even a chicken salad on salad. 

Fortunately, these are not the most pressing questions in life (unless of course you’re getting a panini, which is a pressed grilled sandwich). Yet they are timely, as we are ushering in the yearly salad + sandwich season. Spring and summer, with their warmer temperatures and newly growing produce, call out for lighter, fresher fare, found ideally in the vast variety of salads and sandwiches. Brian could eat a sandwich every day for lunch and be happy, and I could eat a salad every day for lunch and be happy, so the complementarity in our tastes and on our plates is sublime. 

Brian will eat a little of the salad, and I’ll just eat the rest out of the bowl; depending on the day or type of salad, Benson will eat a little, and Kiah will gladly get all the dressings within reach out of the fridge for us. I’m iffy on sandwiches, with the single exception of chicken salad sandwiches, which I love so much that they’re usually my birthday meal, but as long as I don’t get too creative with the definition, Brian and Benson are good to go with sandwiches. 

So whip up some salads and sandwiches this week, whatever on earth that means. 

Strawberry Salad Sandwiches (Sorta)

Of course I went with the idea of a salad sandwich that is actually neither. You know that iconic spring salad with strawberries and poppyseed dressing? Suddenly it sounded delicious to me as a sandwich, but not on bread, so this was born — and honestly I was very gratified with how tasty it was. A key to making craveable salads and sandwiches is achieving some different textures and pops of flavor, which the nutty almonds and salty cheese do for us, with the earthy notes of spinach tortillas embellishing the chew of fresh spinach. This is far too “generous” for the definition of a sandwich for my husband, which is fine because he had nachos instead (a chip salad?).

Prep tips: add chicken or turkey if you’d like, or perhaps some avocado.

• 1 large spinach tortilla

• a handful of fresh spinach

• ½ cup ricotta or cottage cheese

• ¼ cup crumbled feta

• several strawberries, quartered

• a handful of candied almonds

• a drizzle of poppyseed dressing

Layer ingredients down the center of the tortilla, then roll and enjoy. 

Amanda Miller lives with her husband, two young children, and whoever else God brings them through foster care on the family dairy farm in Hutchinson. She enjoys doing some catering, teaching cooking classes, and freelancing, but mostly chasing after her kids. Reach her at hyperpeanutbutter@gmail.com.