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Salad

Waldorf Salad

A salad of grapes, bananas, oranges, celery, nut meats, and lettuce dressed with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Waldorf Salad

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Waldorf Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a serving dish with lettuce leaves.

  2. Dice the celery.

Mix and serve

  1. Mix the diced celery with the grapes, bananas, oranges, and nut meats.

  2. Add mayonnaise dressing to the mixture and stir gently.

  3. Chill well before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Orange + celerytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing
Coats the fruit and vegetables, adding richness and moisture to the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Nut meats
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour.
Malaga grapes
Add juicy sweetness and bright texture.
Bananas
Add creamy body and mild sweetness.
Oranges
Add acidity and fresh citrus flavour that balances the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir gently after adding the mayonnaise dressing. Vigorous stirring breaks down soft bananas and oranges, releasing juice and making the salad watery and mushy. Folding keeps the fruit intact and the dressing evenly distributed.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, orange, meat, celery, lettuce):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, orange, meat, celery, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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