My recipe box is full of things picked up from friends and family. One of the simple salad recipes from my mom’s best friend that’s become a holiday staple in our household is Seven Layer Salad. You can find a lot of variations on this across the internet, but the way Mrs. D always made it (and thus us, too) is, from the bottom up:
- layer of iceberg lettuce
- layer of sliced celery (my husband likes it super thin)
- layer of Le Seur baby peas
- layer purple onion (for us, also super thin)
- another layer of iceberg lettuce
- thin layer of mayo
- Mrs. D’s recipe noted you could sprinkle sugar here – only tried that once and didn’t personally like it
- layer of sharp cheddar cheese
- layer of crumbled bacon
We prefer to break our iceberg into two separate layers, although it is technically only ‘one’ of the seven layers. From a volume standpoint, I use two heads of lettuce. We eat on this salad for days.
Sue London, Author 