A salad is a dish consisting of mixed ingredients, frequently vegetables. They are typically served chilled or at room temperature, though some can be served warm. Condiments and salad dressings, which exist in a variety of flavors, are often used to enhance a salad.
Garden salads use a base of leafy greens such as lettuce, arugula or rocket, kale or spinach; they are common enough that the word salad alone often refers specifically to garden salads. Other types include bean salad, tuna salad, bread salad (such as fattoush, panzanella), vegetable salads without leafy greens (such as Greek salad, potato salad, coleslaw), rice-, pasta- and noodle-based salads, fruit salads and desserts.
Salads may be served at any point during a meal:
Appetizer salads — light, smaller-portion salads served as the first course of the meal
Side salads — to accompany the main course as a side dish; examples include potato salad and coleslaw
Main course salads — usually containing a portion of one or more high-protein foods, such as eggs, legumes, or cheese
Dessert salads — sweet salads containing fruit, gelatin, sweeteners or whipped cream
When a sauce is used to flavor a salad, it is generally called a dressing; most salad dressings are based on either a mixture of oil and vinegar or a creamy dairy base.
The word "salad" comes to English from the French salade of the same meaning, itself an abbreviated form of the earlier Vulgar Latin herba salata (salted herb), from the Latin salata (salted), from sal (salt). In English, the word first appears as "salad" or "sallet" in the 14th century. Salt is associated with salad because vegetables were seasoned with brine (a solution of salt in water) or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during Roman times.
The phrase "salad days", meaning a "time of youthful inexperience" (based on the notion of "green"), is first recorded by Shakespeare in 1606, while the use of salad bar, referring to a buffet-style serving of salad ingredients, first appeared in American English in 1937.