Bring Sweetgreen home with a crispy rice bowl and spicy cashew dressing

When Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman and Nathaniel Ru opened the first Sweetgreen in 2007, they were just a few months out of college and had grand plans. “We kind of felt like, wow, maybe we could have 10 or 20 of these,” Jammet says in a phone interview from New York City, where he was visiting some Sweetgreen outposts.

The reason for the trio’s modest expectations: “Back then, a lot of the feedback was like, ‘This isn’t a full meal. I don’t know how many of these [salads] you can have. It’s so niche.’” But along the way, in what Jammet calls “right place, right time,” the company found itself in the middle of a shift in the food conversation led by Michael Pollan, Michelle Obama and the influential documentary “Super Size Me.”

Since then, he says, “The consumer has changed a lot. What people care about and their connection to food and health has changed a lot.”

Sweetgreen has proved that plenty of people want salad on the regular — if not every day, then at least often enough to help the company expand to 250 locations, with plans for plenty more. The fast-casual chain’s menu is built on healthy, environmentally conscious cooking: vegetable-forward salad and grain bowls that are hearty and filling enough for a main-course lunch or dinner.

The setup of assembly-line meals based on fresh, scratch-made components sometimes makes me wish I could accomplish something similar at home. Could I meal plan effectively enough to have a scaled-down equivalent of Sweetgreen in my fridge, waiting for me to just pick and choose, toss and dress when I want to build lunch?

That’s easier said than done, which is why I order from Sweetgreen more often than I make my own salad. One of my favorite orders: an arugula salad with crispy puffed rice, vegetables and a protein drizzled with a spicy cashew dressing. The bowl’s default uses chicken, but I always opt for a double portion of roasted tofu instead.

It turns out this exact order, with the same modifications, is also the go-to of two of my colleagues. So when one of them started pleading with me to crack the code of the dressing, I couldn’t resist the thought of another fast-casual recipe replication.

Other recipe developers have had the same idea. Search online for “Sweetgreen spicy cashew dressing recipe,” and you’ll see. But many of those dressings are based on raw cashews, while on the chain’s website, the main ingredient is listed as cashew butter — nuttier-tasting because it’s based on roasted nuts.

And then I found it: a social media video from Sweetgreen itself showing how to make the dressing, with every ingredient laid out on a counter but with no text. As the cook’s hands put pinches of this and little prep bowls of that into a blender jar and then pureed it smooth, I enlisted that dressing-obsessed colleague to view it with me as I pressed “pause” and “play” over and over so we could estimate the amounts for a homemade version.

I blended cashew butter with cilantro, maple syrup, garlic, ginger, vinegar, crushed red pepper flakes and more. And the first try was, well, pretty much right on the money except for one thing — the color. Sweetgreen’s dressing is a rich tan, while mine approached vivid green; clearly I needed to cut back on the cilantro. Another sticking point was that the video and ingredient list included just a pinch of “umami seasoning.” Miso did the trick.

The rest of the salad was pretty simple to figure out. I used cooked brown rice (so much easier to find and quicker to cook than wild rice). The ingredient that gives the bowl its name is puffed rice of the sort that natural foods stores sell as a bulk cereal. I imagined that Sweetgreen fries it to get it super crispy; I went with a quick pan-fry for expedience. Similarly, I didn’t want to take up too much time seasoning and roasting tofu, so I heated store-bought, prebaked (marinated) tofu in the same pan.

Jammet tells me the company developed the bowl, inspired by Thai crispy rice salads, a few years ago with the help of Night + Market owner Kris Yenbamroong, “one of my favorite chefs.”

Does Sweetgreen mind the idea of potential customers making a dupe of their salad at home? Not really, Jammet says. After all, even though he cooks for his family at home pretty much every day himself, three times a week he’s ordering from the company he co-founded some 18 years ago.

“We’re not going totally open source or anything, but at the end of the day for us there isn’t a secret recipe that no one should ever know,” he says. “If you want to do it at home, I love that. What I care most about is people’s connection to food.”

• Joe Yonan is the author of “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking” (Ten Speed Press, 2024).

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Sweetgreen-Style Crispy Rice Bowl With Spicy Cashew Dressing

For the dressing:

¼ cup unsweetened, no-salt-added cashew butter (preferably made with roasted, not raw, cashews)

¼ cup water

3 tablespoons avocado oil

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves and stems

2 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (from 1 lime)

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar

2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1 teaspoon shiro (white) miso

¼ teaspoon fine salt, plus more as needed

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, plus more as needed

For the salad:

1 tablespoon avocado oil

1 cup plain puffed rice cereal, such as Nature’s Path Organic

Two (6- or 7-ounce) packages baked tofu (teriyaki or your favorite flavor), cut into 1-inch cubes

8 cups (5 ounces) lightly packed baby arugula

1 cup cooked brown rice or wild rice, homemade or store-bought

¼ small red cabbage (5 ounces total), cored and thinly sliced (2 cups)

1 large carrot (5 ounces), scrubbed and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

3 mini cucumbers (9 ounces total), cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

½ cup roasted unsalted almonds, coarsely chopped

¼ cup lightly packed fresh cilantro leaves and stems

1 lime, quartered

Make the dressing: In a tall, narrow container wide enough to fit an immersion blender, combine the cashew butter, water, avocado oil, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, maple syrup, vinegar, ginger, sesame oil, miso, salt and red pepper flakes. Blend until smooth. Taste, and season with more salt and red pepper flakes, if desired. You should have about 1 cup.

Make the salad: In a large (12-inch) nonstick skillet over medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Have ready a large plate nearby. Add the puffed rice, spreading it out in an even layer and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer to the plate.

Return the skillet to medium heat, add the tofu cubes and cook, without stirring, until browned on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip over and cook until browned on the opposite side, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to the plate with the puffed rice and let cool.

Divide the arugula among four salad bowls. Top each bowl with one-quarter each of the brown or wild rice, cabbage, carrot, cucumbers, puffed rice and tofu, arranging them in discreet sections, if you like. Add the almonds, cilantro and lime quarters, for squeezing over.

Drizzle the salads with half the dressing (about 2 tablespoons per salad) or serve it on the side.

Servings: 4 (makes about 16 cups)

Substitutions: For cashew butter, use peanut butter, almond butter, sunflower seed butter or tahini. For avocado oil, use canola, sunflower or olive oil. For cilantro, use mint or parsley. For lime juice, use lemon juice. For maple syrup, use agave syrup or honey. For rice vinegar, use apple cider vinegar, or white or red wine vinegar. For miso, use nutritional yeast. For puffed rice, use puffed brown rice or puffed millet. For baby arugula, use baby spinach, baby kale or a mixture. For brown rice, use white rice, wild rice or a mixture. For red cabbage, use green cabbage or shredded Brussels sprouts. For carrots, use thinly sliced raw asparagus or cooked sweet potato cubes. For cucumber, use zucchini or summer squash. For almonds, use pecans, walnuts, peanuts, pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.

Make ahead: The dressing, vegetables, tofu, both types of rice and nuts can be refrigerated, preferably separately, for up to 4 days before assembling and serving. This makes about twice as much dressing as you need.

Storage: Refrigerate the salad separately from the dressing, in airtight containers, for up to 4 days.

Where to buy: Cashew butter can be found at natural-food stores, well-stocked supermarkets and online.

Nutritional information per serving (4 cups plus 2 tablespoons dressing): 644 calories, 34 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 61 g carbohydrates, 580 mg sodium, 0 mg cholesterol, 35 g protein, 11 g fiber, 12 g sugar.

— Joe Yonan