They cover salads with strips of material? (9)
I believe the answer is:
dressings
'strips of material?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'they cover salads' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'cover' could be 'dress' (synonyms) and 'dress' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'ings' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'with' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for dressings that I've seen is " bandages".)