The Tool You Need To Make The Perfect Chopped Salad This Summer

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At one time, conventional wisdom had it that lettuce should only be torn, never cut. I always preferred the latter method of preparation, though, since somehow, those neat, clean edges made salads taste better to me. Fast forward a few decades, and now chopped salads are all the rage. In fact, chains such as  Sweetgreen and Chopt are actually charging big bucks for salads in which the lettuce and all of the other ingredients are cut into small pieces. Of course, these salads can be assembled at home for a lot less money, but what kind of chopper is best for making them? A pizza cutter can do the trick, but an even better tool might be an Italian-style knife known as the mezzaluna.

The word mezzaluna means half-moon, but a mezzaluna knife isn't a full half-circle. Instead, it consists of one or two blades that gently curve from one end of a top-held handle to another. You use it by rocking it back and forth over the ingredients to be chopped, either on a flat board or in a wooden bowl. One advantage of using a mezzaluna to make a chopped salad is that it can cut everything more quickly than a standard chef's knife, and the pieces will be similarly sized. If you chop the ingredients all together, the mezzaluna will also mix them to some extent.

The mezzaluna knife originated in Renaissance Italy, so it predates the chopped salad era by quite a few centuries. What, then, was it used for in earlier days? A French term for the knife gives a clue: "hachoir" translates to "herb-chopper," and a mezzaluna was (and is) an excellent way to chop herbs while keeping your fingers out of the way of the knife. The rocking motion of the mezzaluna also puts less strain on your hand than a conventional knife, which is something you may appreciate if you have a mountain of mint to mince. The tool is also recommended if you don't have much grip strength due to illness or injury.

A mezzaluna can be used to chop vegetables for sofrito or salsa, and it won't turn them into mush or even heat them up like a food processor might. These knives also make quick work of garlic, ginger, and nuts. One Takeout writer who claimed that a mezzaluna improved their mental health while they cooked through the pandemic also used this tool for dicing boneless chicken.

Mezzalunas come in various sizes, with smaller six-to-eight-inch ones being preferable for herb chopping. If you have a larger (12+ inch) single-bladed version, however, it can make a very impressive and fun-to-use pizza cutter.