How to Turn Your Pickles into a Salad

As a defiant response to Sad Desk Lunches, the Food52 team works to keep our midday meals both interesting and pretty. Each week, we'll be sharing our happiest desk lunches -- and we want to see yours, too.

Today: Make lunch out of pickles. 

An obsession with fridge pickles has recently taken over my life and my refrigerator space. It began with these sandwiches, which include a salad of sliced fridge pickles, lots of herbs, capers, olives, and oil. You then layer that atop homemade focaccia and homemade aioli with feta and perfectly boiled eggs. It’s a great Not Sad Desk Lunch, if you have a maid.

So I’ve taken to chopping my pickles -- I like radishes, beets, carrots, cucumbers, anything crunchy and breezy -- and tossing them with herbs, capers, olives, chopped boiled eggs (always imperfect), and whatever cheese I have on hand. (Gouda? Sure. Pecorino? Go for it.) If I'm making this ahead of time, I pack the herbs separately and add them just before tossing.

More: Read our primer on quick pickling here.

Add a drizzle of olive oil -- you want to balance out all that vinegar -- and you have lunch. It’s crunchy and soft, with fat in all the right places. It’s refreshing like a bubbly glass of rosé, but you can consume it at your desk without getting fired.

The best part? Once you’re out of pickles, slice up some more vegetables, and toss them into the brine. A few days later, you’ll have more. It’s the lunch that keeps on giving. 

Photo by Eric Moran