How to Garnish Food Dishes

Mound potato salad, seafood salad or any other mayonnaise-based salad on a round platter. Frame the mound with thinly sliced vegetables, or small halved round vegetables or fruits, keeping the shapes as nearly uniform as possible around the outer edge. Consider zucchini, cucumbers, yellow squash, grape tomatoes or seedless grapes, depending on the dish being garnished.

Make vegetable roses. The radish is commonly chosen as the vegetable, but other vegetables and additional techniques produce attractive rose garnishes as well. Make a simple radish rose by setting it on its stem end and making vertical slices across the radish down to the stem end. Leave the slices attached. Cut the slices as thinly or thickly as desired, then put them into ice water for a few hours or overnight to allow them to open. For a fancier radish rose, cut slices perpendicular to the first ones before placing it in the ice water.

Garnish beverages by matching ingredients with the garnish. Use lemon slices to garnish lemonade, skewered pineapple chunks to garnish a pineapple drink or a small candy cane to dress up a holiday peppermint schnapps.

Garnish a main dish with a side dish. Ring small roasted potatoes around a beef roast with carrot chunks between the potatoes to make an appetizing garnish. Rice and noodles are attractive when presented as a ring, filled with a meat choice and drizzled with a sauce or gravy.

Learn to carve foods to make extraordinary works of art with fruits and vegetables. Some of the techniques of food carving are elaborate and highly stylized, but simpler carvings, such as watermelon or pineapple boats, dress up fruit salads by creating interest and a useful vessel.

Garnish foods with edible flowers. Squash blossoms, carnations and red clover blossoms are just a few of the many flowers that offer flavor and interest to food dishes.

Place greenery on food dishes. Kale, lettuce or other greens brighten up otherwise dull or monochrome dishes.