There are many kinds of salad bowls to choose from and you might want to invest in a few different ones. You might like to use a varnished wooden salad bowl with wooden salad forks when feeding your family but perhaps a decorated glass one if you are having a dinner party.

You might like to get a set of salad bowls in different sizes, since you will sometimes be feeding two people but other times you might want to make a lot of salad at once, or you might want to make more than one kind of salad at once.

Salad bowls are usually big, round and shallow. Since salad greens are the most common ingredient used to make salad, the bowl does not have to be very deep, just deep enough so you can toss the salad without bits of it falling over the edge of the bowl.

Salad Bowl Materials

You can get bowls in wood, plastic, stainless steel, and glass. A glass salad bowl is good if you want the salad to be seen through the bowl or if you want to make sure you have tossed it enough. Maybe you are using brightly colored or exotic ingredients, in which case it is nice to display them in a glass bowl. Glass is also easy to chill and you can chill this salad bowl in the refrigerator before filling it with salad, so it stays colder for longer.

Stainless steel can also be chilled, although stainless steel salad bowls are less popular than the glass or wooden ones because they are not so decorative. A wooden salad bowl might be hand finished or pre-finished.

Pre- finished means that it is varnished all over to make it waterproof and to keep it looking good. Hand finishing is when seasoning oils, walnut oil, or mineral oil are rubbed into the wood. It is good to rub beeswax on to the wood too, to stop the bowl from cracking if it dries out or if you miss any part with the oil.

Plastic bowls tend to last longer than glass ones, for obvious reasons, and these do not need to be oiled or finished like wooden bowls. If you are making salad to serve outdoors, a plastic bowl is a nice idea and these come in all kinds of shapes and color, so you can pick a color to match the event or to match your plates and serving dishes.

Do You Need a Salad Bowl?

Maybe you have never owned a salad serving dish and do not see the need for one. You can serve salad on a big plate, if you prefer, or give each person an individual portion of salad on a small plate, but it is still good to present salad in a salad bowl so that people can serve themselves.

You can pick up a nice bowl for serving salad for a few dollars and it is easier to toss and serve salad in one bowl, rather than mix it in a mixing bowl and then transfer it to a plate or another kind of bowl. Pick some matching plates and table accessories, find a tasty salad recipe and you will be glad you bought the bowl to serve it from!