Enliven Your Greens: How Chef Katie Reicher Uses Vinegar To Highlight Vegetarian-Friendly Dishes

The heartbeat of San Francisco’s bayside Fort Mason Park is Greens, a restaurant founded by chef Deborah Madison in 1979. Long considered the leader of the vegetarian movement, Madison opened Greens in conjunction with the San Francisco Zen Center, of which she’d been a student. Forty six years later, chef Katie Reicher is the one leading the restaurant forward. She’s just published a cookbook inspired by nearly five decades of this monument to the vegetarian lifestyle called Seasons of Greens. Amongst the dozens of recipes that star the freshest farmer’s market produce, I noticed that there’s also a lot of vinegar. I spoke with Reicher to her take on its role in vegetarian cooking.

“Vinegar is very important in any cuisine, particularly vegetarian — you have to add a lot of flavors on your own,” says Reicher. “I use it to build flavor, umami, interest and brightness in every dish.” Greens sources most of its vinegar from Sparrow Lane in Ceres, CA, other than rice vinegar from Marukan, another California brand, which was established in Paramount in the mid-1970s.

“We also have Sciabica’s Sweet Lambrusco Vinegar — and Greens has been using Sciabica’s olive oil for nearly 50 years!” rejoices Reicher. The vinegar is mostly used in salad dressings, as Reicher says, “it’s very sweet, even sweeter than a white balsamic, but has this pink tint with the complexity of red wine vinegar.” She combines it with a little Dijon mustard, and plenty of Sciabica olive oil to make the perfect vinaigrette.

“With vegetables, I think people put a little butter, steam them, and that’s all she wrote — it’s good enough,” says Reicher, arguing that if cooks are accepting of a squeeze of lemon to open up flavors, vinegar will achieve a similar result. She has a vinegar for everything; “balsamic for things that are grilled!,” Reicher cites as an example.

Reicher, whose family is Italian-American, leans strong into supplementary side dishes as sauces, making eggplant caponata by way of California produce, adding such flavors as orange zest, and figs instead of raisins in the typically Italian relish. “With all these bright beautiful timely summer California things, we add sherry vinegar for more acidity and a hint of sweetness, it brings out the complexity of the figs,” Reicher reveals.

Another favorite “sauce” is peperonata, an Italian condiment in which red peppers, tomatoes and garlic are stewed all together until softened and sweet, finished with a few drops of balsamic and red wine vinegars. Reicher uses her version as a pasta sauce (there’s a recipe for Pappardelle with Peperonata, Shell Beans and Balsamic in the book). “[Vinegar is] great for preserving, it lasts for a long time, I make this to use up leftover peppers and wrinkly tomatoes I might have during summer months.”

Reicher tells me that when she makes peperonata in peak summer, she finds it to taste very sweet and bland without the addition of vinegar. “Balsamic accentuates the sweet earthy qualities, but you need a sharper red wine vinegar too, for balance,” says Reicher. “The two work in tandem.” In fact, Reicher often combines different types of vinegars in her dishes. That sweet lambrusco vinegar is often matched with sherry vinegar to give it an edge.

Vinegars allow tone down flavors, like in Reicher’s Grilled Romesco, another tangy tomato/pepper-based sauce (but this time from Spain), a classic recipe normally found atop patatas bravas (fried potatoes), and has been historically used on grilled tofu brochettes at Greens. “By grilling the peppers and tomatoes you get more smokey sharpness.” Vinegar balances out not only sweetness, but also the smoke this time. Reicher suggests pairing the romesco alongside some Whipped Garlic Ricotta (also in the book) as a duo of dips, or using the romesco as you would tomato sauce on pasta or pizza.

Acid tempers dairy too — asparagus and cannellini beans get tossed in a tarragon dressing that folds in sour cream and aioli as well, not to mention the pickled mustard seeds sprinkled on top; “[the vinaigrette is] quite creamy, like eating ranch, vinegar keeps it in check.”

But if there’s one dish that defines Reicher’s love of vinegar at Greens, it’s her Goat Cheese-Stuffed Cherry Bomb Chiles. “You boil peppers in vinegar, cover them in olive oil, then let them sit,” Reicher explains. They have a bite — tart and textural — as the peppers are only cooked until slightly soft, and then firm back up somewhat once the olive oil is added. “It becomes more balanced as it sits — I was trying to mimic what you get in a jar, like cheese-stuffed olives,” but instead of briny, it’s bright and balanced.

CREDITS: From Seasons of Greens: A Collection of New Recipes from the Iconic San Francisco Restaurant © 2025 by Katie Reicher. Reprinted by permission of Weldon Owen, an imprint of Insight Editions. All rights reserved. photography © Erin Scott.