Name: Waldorf Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup celery, chopped; 1 cup apples, chopped; ½ cup walnuts or pecans, chopped; Mayonnaise Dressing; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Waldorf Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix together the chopped celery and apples. Add the chopped walnuts or pecans and mix thoroughly.
Combine with Mayonnaise Dressing to coat evenly.

Serve

Arrange the mixture on lettuce leaves in a salad dish or on individual plates.
For a creative presentation, scoop out the pulp from red or green apples, fill with the salad, cover with the tops, and serve on lettuce leaves.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Apples: Provide crunch and a sweet-tart flavor that balances the dressing.
Walnuts or pecans: Add crunchy texture and a toasty, nutty aroma.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that moistens and binds the salad.