Are you ready for summer? For me, summer means lots of fresh produce from the garden, and lots of refreshing salads! If you are looking forward to summer, or just love a fresh salad, I have 26 summer salad recipes you need to check out.
Lets do a quick recap on what it means to be a salad. It is defined as a cold dish with a mixture of vegetables, dressing, and other accompaniments like proteins. That means, salads are not limited to a bowl of lettuce.
While lettuce does make a light and refreshing salad, there are so many other ways to have salads in addition. In this recipe roundup I have divided the recipes into categories by salad type. We will start with lettuce salads, followed by salads made with other greens, like kale and spinach. Then we will dive into bean salads, grain salads, and corn salads with a few miscellaneous salads for good measure. I left pasta salads and potato salads off because they are not light summer salads, although delicious at a summer BBQ nonetheless.
These summer salad recipes are almost all entree salads, with only 4 of the salads below not having enough protein to be an entree. These salads are also all vegetarian or vegan, using plant based proteins. Use these recipes as a guide and make your summer salads to taste, as always.
26 Summer Salad Recipes
Lettuce salads
1. Easy Southwest Chopped Salad
3. Tex-Mex Black Bean Wedge Salad
4. Vegetarian Chili Taco Salad with Jalapenos
Greens Salads
5. Favorite Kale salad with Chickpeas
6. Simple Mediterranean Kale Salad with Golden Balsamic Vinaigrette
7. Garlicky Kale Caesar Pasta Salad
8. Spinach Salad with Sweet Chili Miso Dressing
9. Arugula Wild Rice Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette
10. Strawberry Arugula Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Dressing
Bean Salads
11. Radish Carrot and Arugula Chickpea Salad
13. Cilantro Lime Southwest Black Bean Salad
14. Tzatziki Chickpea Salad with Cucumbers
Grain Salads
15. Thai Peanut Snow Pea and Quinoa Salad
16. Cucumber Dill Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas
17. Sesame Barley Salad with Mushrooms and Green Beans
18. Radish and Corn Wheat Berry Salad
Corn Salads
19. Tomato and Fire Roasted Corn Salad
20. Snap Pea and Fire Roasted Corn Salad
21. Charred Okra and Corn Salad
22. Quick Edamame Corn Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Miscellaneous Salads
24. Thai-Style Sour Salad with Peaches
25. Asian Noodle Stir Fry Salad
26. Italian Tomato Panzanella Salad
This is a winning post! I will refer to it often.