Wichita garlic salad is a regional specialty worthy of national attention

By now, most of the letters have fallen off the sign outside the former Doc’s Steak House in Wichita, but generations of loyal customers can still make out the restaurant’s epitaph: “HOME OF THE WORLD FAMOUS GARLIC SALAD.”

The truth is, garlic salad, a slawlike side with a base of lettuce, cabbage or both, isn’t even Kansas famous. It’s hardly spread beyond the Wichita city limits, and these days, some locals don’t know about it.

But for those who grew up on it, it’s as classic as a relish tray or a shrimp cocktail, with creamy, crunchy and intensely garlicky appeal that you don’t have to live in south central Kansas to appreciate.

The garlic salad story usually starts at Doc’s, which famously served it for six decades before closing in 2014. Near the end, when the supper club entered the internet era, its website was garlicsalad.com.

At one point, the family behind Doc’s reportedly offered to sell the recipe for $700,000. Presumably, there were no takers. The various “authentic” recipes circulating around the internet contradict each other even on the basics: One vocal faction swears the salad was made from minced celery, not lettuce, and claims the family connections and handwritten recipe cards to prove it.

The consensus among former Doc’s employees seems to be that it was a mix of finely chopped iceberg lettuce, a little bit of shredded carrot, a whole lot of mayonnaise and enough garlic (powder and salt) to vampire-proof the restaurant’s regulars, plus a retro dusting of paprika on top. Part of the legend is the effort the cooks put into squeezing the moisture out of the lettuce, which was supposed to help the salad stay crisp and prevent dilution later, keeping the dressing thick and velvety.

“There’s probably more mayonnaise and garlic salt than you’re prepared for,” says Joe Stumpe, the former food editor at the Wichita Eagle, who wrote a definitive piece about garlic salad for the paper in 2003. “The Doc’s version was really more of a dip than a slaw.” It was rich enough that diners scooped it up with buttery Club crackers, which is still part of the garlic salad tradition.

In his reporting, Stumpe concluded that the dish may actually have originated at another shuttered steakhouse, Ken’s Klub, where an ex-prizefighter named Ken Hill supposedly improvised it after running out of salad dressing.

Hill’s children weren’t as protective of their family recipe. They shared it for publication, confirming that at least one of the city’s pioneering garlic salads — possibly the first — was pretty much exactly what it looked like. “It’s very much a ’50s-style recipe,” Stumpe says. “Somebody just threw together stuff you’d find in any refrigerator and spice drawer.”

It’s proved to be greater than the sum of those parts, with more staying power than Ken’s, Doc’s and Wichita’s entire supper-club era.

“People were constantly calling the Eagle and asking me for a recipe,” says Stumpe, who’s pretty sure it was readers’ No. 1 request during his tenure at the paper.

Area restaurants have picked it up over the years, too.

At NuWay Burgers, another Wichita institution, customers eat “crumbly burgers” (loose meats) with an extra-pungent cabbage version. “People who think it’s just slaw are in for a rude awakening,” says Karla Claycamp, the restaurant’s operations manager. “You have to like garlic.” For those who do, it’s habit-forming. “You try it for the first time and say, ‘That’s pretty good,’” Claycamp says. “Then you start craving it.”

You can order it as a side at some of the city’s barbecue joints, including B&C Barbeque, a longtime local favorite. “If you like it, you love it,” owner Carey Maurer said of his cabbage-based house recipe, which he and his customers consider garlic salad even though it’s on the menu as “garlic slaw.” “There’s no in between. We sell buckets of it.”

Some businesses, including the Oasis Lounge and La Galette French Bakery, still make an all-lettuce garlic salad, a la Doc’s and Ken’s. It wilts quickly. When I placed a to-go order at La Galette, they recommended I get the dressing on the side, in case I couldn’t eat it right away.

If you ask me, the best versions split the base, for both a lasting cabbage crunch and the iceberg wedge-like flavor that clearly differentiates salad from slaw. That’s how I make mine. It’s also the approach at Spear’s Restaurant & Pie Shop, the last location in a onetime chain of brightly lit family restaurants, where it’s also a popular order, and Leeker’s Family Foods, an independent supermarket with locations in suburban Park City and Haysville, Kansas, which sells it by the pint.

But I’ll order garlic salad anywhere I see it — which, so far, has only been Wichita.

“Years ago, I tried to find it outside Wichita, and I could not find any references to it,” Stumpe says. “I probably looked at every garlic-related thing online. I even called the people in Gilroy, California, where they have a garlic recipe contest every year. They said nobody had ever entered it.”

This tends to surprise Wichitans who consider garlic salad an old steakhouse staple. One of them is Denise Neil, Stumpe’s successor at the Eagle, who has long known it as a fact of life, though she sees that it’s on the wrong side of a generational divide at the moment. “I brought it up in our morning staff meeting, and all the 20-year-olds on staff went, ‘Garlic salad? What’s that?’” she says. “My boss, who’s in his 60s, said, ‘Oh, it’s the best thing ever.’ We had a long talk about it, and the younger people decided they had to try it.”

In a city that just earned its first two James Beard Award nominations (in 2025 and 2026) and has better-than-average Vietnamese, Lebanese and Mexican restaurants, there’s more for today’s diners to discover than garlic salad.

That’s no reason to leave a distinctive taste of Wichita in the past. The mid-century favorite may never be “world famous,” but it still has something to offer garlic lovers and grillmasters, in its Kansas hometown and beyond.

•••

Wichita-Style Garlic Salad

1 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon garlic salt

½ small head green cabbage (12 ounces total), finely chopped into confetti-like pieces (about 3 cups)

½ large head iceberg lettuce (12 ounces total), finely chopped into confetti-like pieces (about 3 cups)

2 stalks celery (3½ ounces total), coarsely grated

1 medium carrot (2 ounces), scrubbed and coarsely grated

Crackers, such as Club crackers, for serving (optional)

In a medium bowl or airtight container, whisk together the mayonnaise, garlic powder and garlic salt until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, and up to 12 hours, to hydrate the garlic and infuse the mayonnaise.

Transfer the cabbage, lettuce, celery and carrot to a large bowl and thoroughly blot with towels to remove as much moisture as possible. Toss to combine, then add the chilled garlic mayonnaise and gently stir until the greens are evenly coated.

Transfer the salad to an airtight container, pressing down to eliminate air pockets. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 12 hours. (The greens will continue to soften over time, but the cabbage ensures that they don’t lose their crunch.)

Before serving, stir to redistribute the dressing, then transfer to a large bowl, if desired. Serve family-style or with crackers for scooping, if desired.

Servings: 8-12 (makes about 4 cups)

Active: 25 minutes. Total: 55 minutes, plus 2 to 12 hours of resting time.

Make ahead: The dressing needs to be prepared and refrigerated for at least 30 minutes, and up to 12 hours, in advance. The prepared salad needs to be refrigerated for at least 2 hours, and up to 12 hours, before serving.

Storage: Refrigerate for up to 1 day.

Substitutions: Egg-free? Use vegan mayo. Gluten-free? Serve with gluten-free crackers. Instead of both lettuce and cabbage, you can use one or the other. If you don’t have garlic salt, substitute with a pinch of fine salt, and increase the garlic powder to a heaping 1 tablespoon.

Nutritional facts per serving (⅓ cup), based on 12: Calories: 142, Fat: 14 g, Saturated Fat: 2 g, Carbohydrates: 4 g, Sodium: 215 mg, Cholesterol: 8 mg, Protein: 1 g, Fiber: 1 g, Sugar: 2 g.

— Jed Portman