The best braai salads are the ones that survive two hours on a table in the sun. That rules out most leafy salads and rules in anything starch-based, pickled or oil-dressed, which is why the same five or six turn up at every South African braai.
The braai salads that hold up
- Potato salad. The default. Mayonnaise-based, made the night before, better cold.
- Pasta salad. Feeds a crowd cheaply and does not care how long it stands.
- Three-bean salad. Vinegar dressing, so it improves over the afternoon rather than degrading.
- Curried noodle salad. Sweet-sour, holds indefinitely, disappears first.
- Coleslaw. Creamy or vinegar-based; the vinegar version travels better.
- Greek salad. The one leafy-adjacent option that works, because cucumber, tomato, olive and feta do not wilt like lettuce.
Salads to avoid at a braai
- Anything built on lettuce or rocket — 20 minutes in the sun and it is soup.
- Avocado, unless it goes out at the last second.
- Warm salads, which need serving immediately and never do.
How many salads for how many people
Two salads is enough for a braai under 30 people. Three is the comfortable number for 30 to 80. Past 80, four salads stops the same bowl emptying before half the queue has passed it. Portion on roughly 150 g of salad a head in total, whatever the split.
Salads with a spit braai
Salads go onto any of our menus by the head — the classic five at R15 a person, a Greek salad at R20. See the spit braai menus, or the per-head rates on spit braai prices.