It makes sense for salads to get in on the game, maybe infusing mango chutney into a vinaigrette, or adding gochujang to a barbecue-ranch dressing. With so many pantries to explore, it’s no wonder that the global mash-up phenomenon is touching all parts of the menu.

This Tokyo Supergreens Salad at Just Salad, based in New York, gets textural differentiation with roasted broccoli, smooth avocado and toasted almonds. Chicken Tempura Salad: Spiced, shredded chicken breast with carrots, celery, scallions, Mandarin oranges and tempura crunch on a blend of iceberg lettuce, napa and red cabbage with a soy-ginger vinaigrette.Crisp Organic Farm Egg Salad: Parmesan-crusted farm egg, baby tomatoes, red onion, local greens and bacon.Tokyo Supergreens: Supergreens blend, grilled chicken, carrot-edamame slaw, avocado, roasted broccoli, toasted almonds, furikake shake, miso-ginger vinaigrette.From crispy ham crumbles and charred cauliflower bits to cornbread croutons and frizzled onions, textural elements on a salad are the modern equivalent of Emeril Lagasse’s famous “Bam!”-the promise of excitement. Texture is the name of the game today, with chefs unleashing its high-impact potential in creative flourishes that delight and inspire. Puesto’s Caesar Salad: Romaine hearts, Parmigiano-Reggiano, chicharrón croutons and a Serrano Caesar dressing.Palm Beach: Avocado, grape tomatoes, English cucumbers, hearts of palm, romaine, choice of wild shrimp or grilled chicken, with hot honey vinaigrette.Spicing up salad dressing is a great opportunity: It satisfies that love of heat while also playing into the modern trend of nuanced, complex spiciness, which has undertones of savory or sweet-an intuitive play for a salad dressing. They love it, they crave it, and they seek it out. There’s no abatement in the quest for heat by today’s dining consumers. The vibrant Market Carrots Salad at Jane Q in Los Angeles showcases modern textural contrast with roasted, pickled and raw carrot ribbons over swipes of carrot purée and carrot-top pesto. Teig / Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants Group Market Carrots Salad: Locally sourced carrots incorporate roasted, pickled and raw carrot ribbons over artful swipes of carrot purée and carrot-top pesto.Sweetgreen, based in Culver City, Calif.

Hummus Tahina Salad: Chopped romaine, shredded kale, herb falafel, local feta, tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers, za’atar bread crumbs, housemade hummus, cucumber-tahini yogurt dressing.Not to be confused with a drizzle, these dollops, swipes and spreads add a base for the salad, where the diner happily dips into a smoked eggplant purée or garlicky chimichurri, for instance, every other forkful or so. This category represents the greatest expression of a modern salad build, incorporating an unexpected textural element on the plate through the addition of an on-trend flavored hummus or other plant-based purée. Quinoa-Wheatberry Salad with smoked chicken, puffed mango, manchego chicharrón.Farmhouse Chopped: A blend of avocado, potatoes, cucumbers and grapefruit.Perhaps it’s a dollop of fig preserves or a spear of grilled pineapple-a fruit-forward accent signals valuable culinary craftsmanship. Presenting fruit in unexpected ways not only lends a refreshing take to a salad build, it adds a premium positioning that’s hard to beat. Hot Chicken Spinach Salad: A classic spinach salad with hot chicken tenders, blue cheese crumbles, apples, red onion and warm bacon-mustard dressing.Saint Lou’s Bibimbap Salad: Kale, pickled apples, gochujang, farro, grilled chicken.Buffalo Cauliflower Salad: Twice-baked cauliflower tossed in Buffalo hot sauce, mesclun mix, romaine, shredded carrots, cucumber, roasted tomato, crumbled blue cheese with carrot-tomato vinaigrette.Salads are a perfect platform for modern flavor systems, taking the quintessential elements and tossing them into something entirely new. We love tracking the creative play behind trending flavor systems, where chefs maximize their proven success by presenting them in unexpected forms: a pho taco, for instance, or a tikka masala poutine. Here are 12 inroads into signature salads, all offering opportunity to create a memorable, come-back-again flavor experience. Today’s diners have widely accepted bowls, giving the nod to chefs that salads are fair game. One huge source of inspiration for modern salad development is the bowls category, which sees a dizzying amount of impressive textural play and flavor experimentation. Chefs are responding to the driving demand for trend-forward menu items by spinning salads that showcase creativity in both assembly and flavor combination. Salads are a menu mainstay, but that stalwart positioning sometimes blocks innovation.

Salata mix base