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Olive palms for decorating salads

Cut the green onions into long tubes - 3 pieces for each palm tree.
We cut the onion tubes into noodles, but do not cut them all the way through. It turns out to be a skirt with a long fringe.
In order for the onion to curl well, you need to buy freshly cut ones. Also, for better curling, the resulting “skirts” can be slightly dangled in warm water.
Then a “skirt” of a larger diameter is taken and a smaller one is inserted into it, then another and another... (the principle of a telescopic pipe is used).
Olives are strung onto skewers for kebabs, and greens are put on top. Instead of skewers, you can also use hard cocktail tubes cut obliquely at the ends.
To ensure that the palm trees stand steadily in the salad and do not fall, they should be inserted into half a large radish or into a cucumber cut lengthwise.

Design options with sweet pepper palm crowns:

“Palm trees” made from banana slices, kiwi and tangerine slices:

Flower made from cucumber slices

Cut a piece 5 cm long from the cucumber. Cut in half lengthwise. Use a knife to make longitudinal cuts in the peel (this is called “carbing”). Use the cut strips for the stem of a decorative flower.
Cut the processed cucumber into thin slices. Divide them in half and use them as petals for a “daisy”.
Complete the “flower” with cherry tomato halves.

Design option with salted fish “roses”:

A beautiful salad is quite easy to make. To do this, you just need to purchase the appropriate ingredients and show your creativity.

Today we will tell you how to make a beautiful salad using fresh and boiled carrots and eggs.

Decorating the snack

How to do it? A beautiful salad can include completely different ingredients. However, decorating this with chopped vegetables is only permissible if it is puff pastry. If you have prepared a mixed appetizer, then it is best to purchase fresh parsley petals and, forming a thick bunch of them, place them in the center of the product.

Beautifully cut vegetables

For salads, garnish of cucumbers and tomatoes should only be used if the appetizer contains them. This way, guests will immediately understand what this dish is made from.

So, to decorate the salad you should use only the freshest and most elastic vegetables possible. They must be washed thoroughly. However, peeling them is not recommended at all. After all, thanks to her we can create contrast.

Making a "hedgehog"

For salads it can have absolutely any shape. The most popular are “roses” (from tomatoes) and “petals” (from cucumbers). Today we decided to tell you how you can make a “hedgehog” from the presented ingredients. This “character” will perfectly decorate a dish for a children’s party. For it we will need:

large round tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
fresh elastic cucumbers - 2 pcs.;
red radish - 2 pcs.;
olives and black olives - several pieces;
mayonnaise or sour cream - a little.

Cutting vegetables

DIY salad decorations should be done in stages. First, all the ingredients need to be washed and chopped. Fresh tomatoes should be divided in half, and then cuts in the skin should be made in a checkerboard pattern. After this, you need to cut the cucumbers and radishes into thin slices. As for olives and olives, they need to be chopped into circles. They will be useful to us for forming “eyes”.

Forming a "hedgehog"

A “hedgehog” from cucumbers and tomatoes is formed quite easily. To do this, place the tomato halves on a flat plate with the convex part facing up. Next, you need to place slices of cucumbers and radishes into their cuts. By the way, it is from the last ingredient that you need to make the “hedgehog” face. To do this, the radish should be divided in half and attached to the tomato. You also need to apply two mayonnaise dots on it and make a nose out of black olives.

This “hedgehog” is good to put on the “Senior Tomato” salad. It is prepared from the following layers:

boiled beef, shredded into strips;
onion half rings soaked in vinegar;
boiled potatoes, grated;
hard cheese;
a thick layer of mayonnaise;
chopped fresh tomatoes.

This dish can also be decorated with “roses” of tomatoes and “petals” of cucumbers.

Making egg decorations for salads

Decorations should be made from eggs for such salads as “Mimosa”, “Sunflower”, “Herring under a fur coat” and so on. For the presented snacks, egg “chamomile” is best suited. For it we only need three large chicken eggs, which should be hard-boiled in advance.

After preparing the components, they need to be cooled and cleaned. Next, the eggs need to be carefully separated into whites and yolks. The first ingredient must be cut into thin longitudinal strips. As for the yolks, they should either be chopped on a small grater or mashed with a regular fork.

Decoration process

After the eggs are prepared and the layered salad is formed, you can safely begin to decorate it. To do this, you need to place grated yolks in the center of the snack, and place strips of whites along the edges. As a result, you should get a kind of chamomile. If desired, you can make several egg flowers on the surface of one salad. To prevent them from losing their beautiful appearance, the dish should be presented to the table immediately.

Chicken salad decoration

If you want to make a beautiful salad using chicken and eggs, then you can decorate it as follows. The eggs must be boiled, cooled and carefully peeled. Next, the white should be divided in half (you can make a relief cut), and then one half should be removed, but so that the yolk remains intact. Using pieces of olives and thin slices of boiled carrots, you need to make “eyes” and a “beak” for the yolk. In this form, the “chickens” can be placed on the surface of the salad, forming a kind of nest out of French fries.

Making carrot flowers

Decoration made from carrots in the shape of a flower is very popular among housewives. After all, doing it is easy and simple. However, it is recommended to use such products only for those salads that contain boiled carrots.

So, to decorate the puff pastry, you need to purchase a fresh thin and long vegetable. It needs to be washed thoroughly and then boiled as a whole in salted water. After this, the carrots must be cooled and carefully peeled. Next you can start cutting out the flowers. To do this, several triangular cuts with a depth of no more than 4 millimeters should be made along the vegetable. In this case, the cut out parts must be carefully removed.

Finally, the processed carrots should be chopped into rings 5 millimeters thick. As a result of such actions, you should get beautiful and bright flowers that can be immediately placed on the surface of the salad. To complete the picture, you should add sprigs of parsley or dill to them.

In addition to ordinary flowers, cooks very often make roses, butterflies, etc. from carrots. But this requires more experience and skill.

Let's sum it up

As you can see, there are quite a few ways to decorate layered salads. Using these techniques, you can not only serve it beautifully, but also surprise all your invited guests.

By the way, in addition to eggs, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes, beets, red fish, various berries, nuts, fruits, etc. are often used to decorate appetizers.

Any festive table, regardless of the scale of the event - be it a wedding, a half-century anniversary, International Women's Day or a modest romantic dinner in honor of the day you met - cannot be imagined without delicious and original salads.

It’s probably impossible to count how many recipes there are, because every housewife has her own original salad, which she came up with herself. But that’s not what we’ll talk about here. Any salad, whether it’s your signature or one that has been proven for centuries, needs to be decorated and served so that it becomes the center of everyone’s attention. Of course, to make the salad attractive, you will need skill and experience, craftsmanship and imagination, good taste and ingenuity.

But if there is no time left to fantasize, and you need a beautiful salad urgently, we suggest using our tips and some ideas that will help you make your dish colorful and creative, and perhaps lead you to create an even more stunning masterpiece.

So, this article will not contain any salad recipes. You can base it on your favorite one, the one you cook most often, the one your guests and family love. We will talk exclusively about decorating salads.

International Women's Day March 8

Salads for International Women's Day on March 8 can be made in the form of the number “8”. Any non-layered salad is prepared and mixed in a separate bowl. After that, two glasses or jars of different sizes are placed on a flat holiday dish, with a smaller diameter at the top and a larger diameter at the bottom, so that together they form something similar to the number “8.”

The salad is laid out around this structure and after that its top and sides are further decorated. Since this is a holiday of women and spring, decorating with canned corn in combination with sprigs of dill will look good, you will get something like a bouquet of mimosa. You can simply sprinkle chopped dill on top of the salad, place halves of cherry tomatoes on it like little ladybugs, and arrange calla lilies made from thin slices of cheese around it.

A salad in the form of a small basket with violets will look very cute.

It would be nice to serve it in portions to each guest. You will need to place a small portion of the salad on a flat dish, forming it in the shape of a barrel, cover the sides with salty cracker cookies, and on top make greens from lettuce leaves and pink violets from thinly chopped radishes; you can sprinkle a little grated egg yolk in the middle of the flower.

Holy Resurrection of Christ - Easter

For the bright and great holiday of Easter, we not only bake Easter cakes and paint eggs, but also prepare a lot of goodies, just like for the New Year's table. The holiday is truly great, and strict fasting is observed, you can allow yourself to break your fast and celebrate.

Salads for this day should be decorated in the same light and clean style and spirit. No bright flashy colors, there should be pure tenderness. Place any salad in a crystal salad bowl, grate hard cheese on top, cut petals from boiled egg whites and place flowers with them, place fresh parsley between them. As they say, simple, but tasteful.

An ordinary herring under a fur coat can be beautifully decorated with a basket made of thin, slightly melted strips of cheese. On top are flowers made from boiled carrots, shredded cabbage, and the whole thing is completed with fresh greens with thin strips of leeks wrapped in rings.

For strong families and all lovers

For Valentine's Day or for some special family date, you can prepare a layered salad and lay it out in the shape of a heart, and garnish with boiled shrimp and red caviar.

Now the holiday of Saints Peter and Fevronya, which is called the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, is gaining particular popularity in Russia, it is celebrated on July 8th. On this holiday or on the anniversary of a marital relationship, it will be very symbolic to decorate the salad with a pair of swans made from boiled egg whites and many red hearts cut from sweet bell peppers.

For our beloved kids

When we celebrate the birthdays of our beloved children and invite their friends to visit, it is very important to interest the children in original designs and decorations of the most ordinary salads.

You can put them on a dish in the form of some kind of animal and then, using multi-colored pieces of boiled or fresh vegetables, herbs, olives, cheese and sausage, canned corn and peas, attach paws, eyes, tails and ears to these animals.

Children will also be delighted with the fruit salad in the form of a Rubik's cube. All you need to do is carefully cut the existing fruits into equal cubes. You can also use marshmallows, Turkish delight, and marmalade in this salad. To prevent the cubes from falling apart, you need to coat each layer with yogurt, honey or gelatin, then let these salads stand in the refrigerator so that the entire Rubik's cube is well held together.

The main thing is to then bring it to the table and put it on the table for the little ones, and then let them do whatever they want - they eat, change cubes, choose their favorite fruits, or eat only oriental sweets. These are children, and they have a holiday, sometimes we have to allow ourselves to spoil them.

Birthday flower basket

For your mother or friend’s birthday, you can come with an original gift - a salad prepared with your own hands in the form of a basket of flowers. It’s clear that you can’t drag yourself across the whole city with such a gift, but in case you live in the neighborhood, you can be pleasantly surprised.

Prepare any tasty salad, decorate one half of which with short strips of cheese, laid out like a wicker basket, sprinkle the other half with finely chopped fresh herbs and place on it randomly different flowers from boiled eggs and vegetables, cheese and bright bell peppers. The handle of the basket can also be made from cheese, melting it a little and giving it the desired shape.

Fabulous and magical New Year and Christmas

Salads decorated in the form of Christmas wreaths will look very beautiful and symbolic at a New Year's festive feast.

Any salad must be prepared in a separate bowl and all ingredients mixed. After this, place a mold or jar on a festive flat dish, around which the wreath will be placed. Next, you need to lay out the salad in a circle, generously sprinkle it on all sides with dill (after all, it is very similar to fluffy spruce branches), randomly scatter pomegranate seeds and canned corn, like New Year’s toys.

Now roll up candles from the melted cheese plates, make a tongue of flame from pieces of red or yellow bell pepper, and place the candles throughout the wreath. Such a salad should rightfully take center stage on the table on a fabulous and magical New Year's Eve.

We propose to arrange herring under a fur coat, without which the New Year is not complete in any normal Russian family, in an original way in the form of a roll, decorate with fresh parsley and flowers made from boiled egg whites.

We hope that our tips and examples of decorating salads for various events will be useful to you, and based on them you will invent your own dish decorations.

The younger generation will not be able to appreciate fine china, elegant tablecloths or intricate, elaborate treats. But the decorations and beautiful, original design of salads and other dishes for a children's party will be appreciated by children with a good appetite and exclamations: “Wow, yay!” Your task is not to prepare a myriad of treats, but to make them attractive and appetizing so that your child’s guests have fun.

We hope that our selection of ideas for beautiful decorations for children's dishes will help you arrange a fun baby shower for your child! So that your baby can appreciate all your efforts, be sure to involve him in decorating salads and decorating dishes with interesting design elements.

Usually for a children's party we prepare light salads, one or two hot dishes and, of course, cake and pastries. Don't forget about the fruit slices! Children need vitamins! Let's see what design we can handle!

Very often it is difficult to feed children at a holiday with anything other than sweet water and cake. The task of the adult part of the host party is to feed the children real food. We need to present healthy salads in such a way that fidgets are interested!

For salad design we use fresh and boiled vegetables and eggs, olives and lemon. All we need is a sharp knife, a grater and a little time. Moreover, your little and active assistant is already standing next to you!

This original salad design is made using canned olives, suluguni cheese or long strands of Korean carrots. At the same time, you can teach children about spiders, right?

Entrust these ladybugs to your assistant - they are so easy to make! We cut out the heads of the insect from olives, the antennae from stalks of greenery, the dots on the red shell from green parsley leaves, and the “bugs” perched on the parsley! Beautiful, is not it?

This vegetable “cake” is wonderful! As you can see, a very simple option! Carrots, cucumbers and cranberries! If there are no cranberries, both viburnum and rowan will do. Even the corn looks decent!

Place the vegetable flower on a separate plate, and secure the entire structure with a pair of toothpicks. While you are preparing the salad, the flower vegetable plates will “remember” their shape. Having placed the flower in the center of the “cake”, carefully remove the toothpicks, because restless guests will immediately want to taste the “petals”!

Shredded carrots and cheese on a cheese grater are our tried and tested tools for decorating salads. Look at these attractive dishes! Tiger cub, mushroom, mouse... It’s very easy to decorate a dish using these products!

Fungus

The mushroom is decorated not with hard cheese, but with grated egg whites and boiled carrots. The function of grass is perfectly performed by chopped dill or parsley, and the soil on the stem is a row of olives. You can “plant” a couple of ladybugs on a mushroom, which can be easily made from a small tomato and an olive.

It is often very difficult to feed children healthy food, so consider the idea of a beautiful mushroom-shaped dish to serve vegetables to your child every day.

Rabbit

A salad mixture laid out in the shape of a rabbit usually delights not only children, but also adult guests. To keep a salad dressed with mayonnaise in shape, try to slightly reduce the amount of dressing (mayonnaise). Thin cheese shavings also help hold the lettuce structure together. The ears are the inner leaves of Chinese cabbage.

Worker "Bee"

Your little helper can lay out such a bee! Just cut the olives first for this mosaic! Alternate olives on a salad with brightly colored corn kernels. Thick sheets of white cabbage will serve as the “wings” of the bee - you just need to cut out the necessary elements from them with culinary scissors.

Smile of the sun

This smiling sun will cheer you up even on a cloudy day, and decorating such a salad is as easy as shelling pears! You can decorate the salad in portions in the same way! Well, how can a child not try the bright smiling sun!

wise snake

But you will have to tinker with the snake! The tricky part is keeping the serving platter looking clean and fresh. And since this is quite difficult to achieve, let's arrange it in the grass, which will cover the surface of the serving dish. Any greenery can serve as grass. As you can see in our pictures, the appearance of the “snake” salad can vary.

You can convey all the beauty of snakeskin scales using products of different colors. It all depends on the availability of suitable products and your imagination. Cheese slicers (with a wavy knife) and apple corers can help.

Ships

But this decoration of salad compositions is a little different from the previous ones! The salad is laid out in portions into cucumber halves. You can play with this with sweet peppers too.

In conclusion, I would like to note that decorating salads and other dishes for a children's party should arouse excitement in children, so that children eat food along with decorative elements and are full before games! And the recipe is not important - what is important is the beautiful and original design. Children love with their eyes, they are not gourmets yet, but little fidgets!

The definitions of “tasty” and “attractive” in relation to dishes are not always synonymous, but it is desirable that they go hand in hand. The aesthetic pleasure of contemplating a salad can also affect its taste perception. After a positive solution to the question “how to cook,” the housewife begins to worry about a new problem: how to choose a worthy decoration idea.

How to decorate a salad

Having started to solve this issue, you need to add one more element to the list of conditions - the reason for which the salad is being prepared. A wedding, birth of a child, anniversary, New Year require adherence to a certain theme. If you just want to diversify your everyday table, decoration may consist of a new technology for arranging ingredients and even choosing a more attractive dressing. A good example is restaurant salads, which are often devoid of obvious decoration, but look great both in glossy photos and in real life.

The fastest way is to find an original “container”: half a pumpkin, zucchini, pepper.
Choose a recipe that contains an unusual combination of colors or shapes - such a salad will no longer need to be decorated.
Sliced meat and cheese as a base for the main salad pile is a simple and healthy option for decorating a portioned dish.

Decorating salads for the New Year

A universal idea for decorating such a dish would be to give it the shape of a Christmas tree. This option suits even the traditional Olivier salad: if there is a characteristic silhouette, green is not necessary, but garlands of olives and corn will be a beautiful addition. Professionals suggest trying to push off from next year’s patron. Simple ideas for decorating New Year's salads:

Snake shaped according to any recipe that includes mayonnaise. The scales are lined with thin semicircles of cucumber or peas, the eyes are lined with olives or corn kernels.
The dragon is created by analogy with a snake, but it needs whiskers from dill sprigs, and small leathery wings can be made from Chinese cabbage leaves.
The tiger's face is a circle with ears, covered with grated carrots, eyes made of egg whites and olives, and a tongue made of boiled sausage. The base of the salad can be made from pate with eggs and cucumbers.

How to decorate a salad for a birthday

For such a holiday, the central dish is mainly complemented with verbal congratulations. If you decide that it will be a salad, it may turn out to be even more impressive than a cake. However, how to decorate a salad for a birthday if it is only one of the majority of dishes on the festive table? Professionals give the following advice:

Try to build on the time of year of the birthday person. In decoration, you can only follow the time scale characteristic of the season (yellow-red for autumn, white-blue for winter, etc.), or fully draw parallels - “sketch” leaves, snowflakes, flowers.
You can try making a festive salad for a woman, especially one presented on an anniversary, in the form of a large bouquet. Which flower to choose for decoration depends on the tastes of the birthday girl and your capabilities: gerberas are easy to arrange, tulips also form quickly. You'll have to tinker with the lilies.

Salad decorations for children

If the dish is aimed at a child, you can build on his individual preferences and interests - according to professionals, this is a win-win option. Decorating salads for a children's party can be done in several ways:

Giving an unusual shape. This move is also used in preparing a cake for a child. The ingredients of the dish are arranged so as to create a “sculpture” on the plate: a bear, a bunny, a car, a ball, etc. The complexity of this method of decoration is that it is only suitable for salads where there is a binding component: sour cream, mayonnaise. Those. thick and dense in consistency, otherwise the figure will quickly fall apart.
Creating a painting on lettuce. There is no need to “write” masterpieces: even a simple sun and small but bright flowers will already attract children’s attention. An equally interesting decoration is the characters of your favorite cartoons.
Volumetric decor. You'll have to look for step-by-step instructions on how to prepare different figures for decoration and practice. If you have portioned salads, you can distribute them into “boats” of cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, add a toothpick with plastic cheese - you will get real ships, ready for a long voyage.

How to decorate the salad

Culinary professionals are confident that beautiful salad design is possible with any product - from cucumber to raw smoked sausage. You can create an original decoration, even if the recipe only includes onions, raw beets and vegetable oil. A little imagination, a bit of skill, a little free time, and the dish will get an original look. Dyes that can be obtained from simple products deserve special attention:

For red – cranberries, lingonberries, pomegranate seeds. Vegetables: tomatoes.
For raspberry - beets.
For orange – sea buckthorn, oranges, juice squeezed from carrots.
For yellow – saffron, egg yolk, corn.
For blue, squeeze the juice from red cabbage.
For green – spinach.
For black - olives.

Decoration for vegetable salads

For this design option, you need to make sure that the products can hold their shape for a long time, so it is used mainly for items that have not undergone heat treatment. To decorate the dish, figures of vegetables are cut out and placed on the plate in a random or pre-designed order. Or simpler classic decoration options are possible:

“cobwebs” or mayonnaise/sour cream inscriptions;
twigs, bunches of greenery;
halves/quarters of olives;
grated cheese, boiled meat or sausage, free of fat;
egg shavings/crumbs.

How to beautifully decorate salads with nuts

This method of decoration is valued for its speed and simplicity. Even the basic sprinkling of crushed nuts on the finished salad already makes it more attractive, and if you come up with the idea of using the shape of the kernels, you can create a whole picture. A winter salad decorated with walnuts is a classic of the holiday table genre, and sesame grains on a dietary assortment of greens is an ideal way for a “tasty but easy” option. The nuts must be roasted first.

Egg decorations for salads

For such a decorative idea, you first need to figure out how to cook eggs so that the yolk does not fall apart when working. Professionals practice this cooking:

Place the eggs in cold water to cover them completely.
Wait until it boils.
Count down 9 minutes.
Remove and cool quickly.

Decoration mainly involves the creation of bouquets or single flowers on the surface. To do this, the egg is cut longitudinally, and the resulting oval halves are laid in the desired direction and in the desired shape. There are several more options:

Petals can also be made from “slices”: the egg is also cut vertically, but into several plates 0.4-0.7 mm thick.
For simple decorations, take the yolk from a boiled egg, which can be turned into crumbs - it is great for simply sprinkling on the surface. It is also used to form yellow mimosa balls in the salad of the same name.
If you remove the yolk, the remaining long half of the boiled white can be turned into a boat. By placing a stick with a bent circle of cucumber, or plastic cheese or even red fish, vertically in it, you can get a small boat.

Original salad design

In addition to the previously listed ways to make an interesting dish, there are several more unusual options. With such original ideas, decorating salads and appetizers will become especially enjoyable:

Jelly. Can be used for pouring ingredients, so that after the frozen salad is cut and served in portions. An alternative way to decorate is to create dense figures and decorate the dish with them.
Ice. Make a bowl of frozen water with vegetable pieces in it and serve the salad in it.

Carving decoration

Such original design of salads and appetizers can be found in restaurants, especially when it comes to preparing a holiday dish that has high aesthetic requirements. Carving design involves shaped cutting of vegetables or fruits, but can be used with cheese and sausage. Homemade carving for decorating dishes is not only beautiful in the end, but also a pleasant time with your child.

Arm yourself with a sharp knife (it’s better to take several, of different sizes) and try the following simple ideas for decorating your homemade salads:

Cut the boiled sausage into thin circles, bend each in half, stack on top of each other in 0.5 cm increments, and form a bouquet.
Using a peeler, cut the cucumber into long flexible layers and form them into a blossoming bud.
From a fresh whole cucumber, you can use the tip of a sharp knife to cut out a large curved drop, make veins on the surface and get a large green leaf.

Beautifully decorated salads - photo

To structure the information presented above, it is worth looking at ready-made compositions, then breaking them down into components. This will help you decorate the dish yourself. Simple step-by-step options for beautiful salad design with photos:

Christmas wreath. The base can be any (herring under a fur coat, crab salad, etc.), it is laid out in a ring. Decoration: sprigs of dill. On top you can put stars cut out from cheese, carrots and sweet peppers.
Mimosa. Fast, simple, tasty. Submits even to an inexperienced mistress. Placed in layers in a glass (!) bowl: pieces of salted fish, grated boiled whites, grated carrots, chopped onions, boiled mashed potatoes. Decoration – crumbled yolks. Mayonnaise between layers.
Garnet bracelet. Professionals advise placing a glass in the center of the dish - this will create a ring. The ingredients are placed again in layers: pieces of boiled chicken, grated carrots, mashed potatoes, crushed nuts, grated boiled beets, more nuts, fried onions, more nuts. On top of the “slide” is mayonnaise, which is tightly covered with grated beets. Decoration: pomegranate seeds.
Rubik's Cube. An interesting idea is to cut each dense ingredient into small squares that are folded into a cube. To prepare the salad, take cheese, beets, carrots, and cucumber.

Decorating dishes for an anniversary. Decorating salads is an activity for a cheerful mood and excellent appetite