Salads are undergoing a renaissance. Once the final resting place for bland lettuce, insipid tomato and watery cucumber, salads have become a feast for the senses. Platters of grains, leaves, pulses, herbs, roasted and raw vegetables, nuts and zingy dressings now all play a part to make spring’s best offering shine.

And salads are no longer relegated to the side plate. Instead, they are main meals served at any time of the day (yes, breakfast salads are a thing). We can’t get enough of them.

The rise of the salad has sated an Australian appetite for freshness, brightness and crunch, says Matt Preston, author, MasterChef judge and delicious. senior editor. “Holiday in Europe bombarded with cheese and creamy sauces, or not enough vegetables, and an Aussie salad is what I miss. Our renewed love of ancient grains, our interest in raw food and health, and our new understanding of contrasting textures and flavours – this has all played into salads’ hands, making them now much more than a culinary accessory.”

It was nearly a deal-breaker when the chef and owner of Sydney’s Kepos Street Kitchen Michael Rantissi’s wife first made him a salad. “She made me a lettuce salad with button mushrooms, cucumber and anything she could find,” he laughs. “It was such a mishmash of ingredients. She totally traumatised me.”

Rantissi’s view is simple. “Salad needs to have one big hero ingredient,” he says. And for Rantissi, the hero ingredient is usually a vegetable. “Growing up in Tel Aviv, vegetables were always the main component of salads, with meat adding flavour,” he says.

Rantissi points to the cult-like status cauliflower is currently gaining. Adding a few other ingredients can create a knockout salad. “Nuts like pistachios, almonds and walnuts add an element of crunch and texture that doesn’t exist in the vegetable,” he says. “Then you add pomegranate molasses and herbs for sweetness.”

Preston agrees. “Traditionally, a salad was defined by vegetables or leaves with oil, salt and vinegar. The word salad comes from the Latin ‘salata’, or salty,” he says. “In the last 10 years, with the raw food movement and people looking for a healthier way of eating, the salad has evolved. We’ve added to saltiness more texture, creaminess, sweetness.”

Set against the salt and what Preston calls “wet crunch, from say cucumber or iceberg lettuce,” sweetness often appears now in the form of fruit – think grilled stone fruit, tangy barbecued pineapple, pickled berries and the pop of finger limes.

In Brisbane, chefs Alison and Brett Hutley had such trouble finding a takeaway salad option that was both healthy and tasty that they opened Botanica Real Food in 2013. “There are lots of beautiful cafes in Brisbane, but no one was focusing on grab-and-go meals that were prepared by chefs,” Alison Hutley says.

Focusing on salads was a no-brainer for the couple. “There are so many varieties of salads,” she says. “They can be a complete meal for someone on a plant-based diet or a nourishing supplement for meat-eaters.”

Hutley says that a good salad comes down to creating the perfect forkful. “You want to get a little bit of everything in each mouthful,” she says. “A bit of crunch, something interesting like a pickle or unusual spice such as sumac, grain that’s cooked well and a complementary vegetable.”

The influence of Israeli-British chef Yotam Ottolenghi has helped Aussies see salads as more than just rabbit food. But Matt Wilkinson, chef and author of Mr Wilkinson’s Simply Dressed Salads, says Ottolenghi has really just shone a light on flavours that have long been staples of particular regions. “A lot of those salads from Persia or Arabia have been around for centuries,” Wilkinson says. However, he agrees that using dried fruits and nuts are a welcome addition.

Almost anything can go into a salad, says Wilkinson, but he draws the line at chocolate, coffee or mock meat. “Salads can be complex, but sometimes they are the easiest thing as well,” he says.

He regularly uses leftovers to fashion new salads. “With leftover roast vegetables, haloumi or feta and a nice dressing, you’ve got tomorrow’s lunch,” he says. “Or noodles from the night before with mirin, soy, shallots and blanched broccoli. My kids love that.”

For those looking for a great salad, Wilkinson suggests a visit to Pho Nom in Melbourne’s CBD. “David and Jerry Mai do an awesome lemongrass chicken salad that is zesty and delicious,” he says.

For David Mai, when making his Vietnamese salads, vermicelli noodles with lettuce, pickled carrots, daikon and Vietnamese herbs such as mint are integral. The sauce, he says, is also important. “Vietnamese cooking is always a balance of sweet, salty, spicy and sour.” To that he adds texture in the form of fried crunchy onions.

Freshness is something Australians “really smash,” says Preston, arguing we’ve always done good salads. “Potato salad, the four bean salad – these are classics alongside a slab of cremated meat.” But now, he says, “The salad is often the most interesting part of the Aussie barbecue.”