Ina Garten-Inspired Coleslaw

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

Coleslaw that was perfect when you made it and watery an hour later did not have a dressing problem.

Shredded cabbage goes on losing water for hours, and once it is dressed that water goes straight into the mayonnaise. No thickening, no draining and no extra mayonnaise fixes it, because the cabbage has not finished. Salt it first — two teaspoons tossed through, an hour in a colander — and it gives up a surprising amount of liquid before it ever meets the dressing. Squeeze it, and the slaw you make will be the slaw you serve.

You lose maybe a third of the volume. What is left is seasoned right through and stays crisp.

Rinse the salt off, then dry hard

An hour of salting leaves the cabbage far too salty to eat. Rinse it under cold water and then dry it properly — a salad spinner, or a tea towel gathered up and wrung. Water left on the leaves goes into the dressing exactly like the water you just removed.

Cut it by hand, not in a processor

A processor blade bruises and tears cabbage, which makes it weep faster and go limp sooner. A knife slices cleanly. Quarter the cabbage, cut out the core, and shred it as finely as you can manage across the leaves.

Soak the onion if it is going in raw

Two minutes in cold water takes the aggressive edge off sliced raw onion without touching its crunch. In a slaw that sits for half an hour, untreated onion keeps getting stronger and eventually dominates everything else.

Storing

Two days dressed, and it is honestly best on the first day. The salted, rinsed, dried cabbage keeps three days undressed — which is the useful thing to make ahead.