Salad Recipes

Arugula Corn Salad with Bacon
This is a salad of bold flavors, but somehow they all manage to work together well. Sweet corn tossed with peppery arugula, bacon, onion, cumin, and wine vinegar to balance the sweet corn, and you have stimulated all the major...
Arugula Salad with Beets and Goat Cheese
Winter in California is the season for arugula, along with many other lettuces. A few years ago we planted some in our garden and now each year the arugula re-seeds itself and takes over with a flourish, starting in December...
Avocado Salad with Heirloom Tomatoes
Mark Bittman of the New York Times recently did a write up of simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less. This avocado tomato salad would be my entry, but in five minutes or less, and that would include picking...
Black Bean Salad
What is it about a black bean salad that practically shouts, "summer potluck"? The mercury has been edging past a hundred degrees lately here and I've been getting nostalgic for some of the picnic foods I remember having often as...
Broccoli Salad
The problem with most broccoli salads is the broccoli - the raw broccoli. Some people like raw broccoli, and actually, I love raw broccoli stems. They taste a lot like cabbage or cauliflower. But the florets? If they're raw, keep...
Cardamom Citrus Fruit Salad
The leaves are all down, apples, pomegranates, and persimmons all picked, days mostly overcast and dreary, save for neighborhood citrus trees with their orange and yellow orbs dotting the landscape with vivid color. Citrus trees love winter in California and...
Celery Root Salad
Also known as celeriac remoulade, this salad is a refreshing accompaniment to seafood dishes and very easy to make. Celery root looks like a giant turnip, but tastes more like a cross between celery and jicama. The result is a...
Chicken Apple Arugula Goat Cheese Salad
Arugula on its own is so peppery it can almost be too much. However, partnered with either walnuts, goat cheese, or in this case both, mellows the tanginess of the arugula. A perfect, light, luncheon salad.
Chicken Curry Salad
I love this curry chicken salad. I made up this recipe 20 years ago after a friend of mine gave me a gift box of curry spices and have been making it ever since. It's quite easy to make. The...
Chicken Salad
My mother and father make the best chicken salad. It's a joint effort; dad assembles all of the ingredients, mom makes the dressing. There are a few things that distinguish this chicken salad recipe from a standard version. First, we...
Chicken Salad with Tarragon
Inspiration for good food can be found anywhere, even Starbucks. I had a delicious chicken salad sandwich there last week. The key ingredients other than chicken? Cranberries and tarragon. French tarragon is a distinctive herb, with a slight anise or...
Chickpea (Garbanzo Bean) and Tomato Salad
Fresh summer tomatoes, garbanzo beans (also known as chickpeas), hard boiled eggs, and sweet onions, tossed with a light vinaigrette - here are the makings of a surprisingly delicious summer salad. I made this for lunch yesterday from a recipe...
Chinese Chicken Salad
This Chinese chicken salad is a colorful and tasty way to use up some leftover chicken and makes for a light lunch. I experimented with few different dressings and ultimately settled on this one which I think is quite good...
Classic Carrot Salad
Grated carrot salad has to be one of the easiest dishes in the world to prepare, as well as being pretty kid-friendly and good for you. The trick is to start with the best carrots you can find. Here is...
Cobb Salad
Cobb salad is the quintessential American salad, first pulled together on a whim by Robert Cobb of the former Los Angeles landmark Brown Derby restaurant when he needed to feed Sid Grauman late one night (1937). It was such a...
Cold Pea Salad
This delightful cold pea salad recipe comes from my friend Chigiy's friend Beth, who brought it to a recent BBQ. It calls for Smokehouse Almonds, but I think it could easily be made with tamari almonds too. Perfect for picnics...
Coleslaw
The word "coleslaw" comes from the Dutch word, "koolsla", "kool" meaning cabbage and sla, salad. The word entered our English language from the Dutch in New York in the late 1700s. Since then it has been a featured side dish...
Crab Mango and Avocado Salad
I first encountered a crab mango salad at Fringale, the exquisite French-Basque restaurant on 4th St. in San Francisco. Recently at a restaurant in LA I had another delicious crab mango salad, this time with avocado and surrounded by peeled...
Crab Salad with Pear and Hazelnuts
Most crab lovers know that fresh crab pairs well with avocado. But have you ever tried it with roasted hazelnuts (also called Filberts)? I got this idea from a crab hazelnut pear appetizer prepared by Oregon chef Jason Stoller Smith...
Cucumber Salad with Mint and Feta
When the hot weather hits, nothing is more cooling than a cucumber salad. Inspired by a fabulous cucumber salad shared with a friend at the Sea Salt restaurant in Berkeley, I canvassed my neighborhood grocers for some delicate Persian cucumbers...
Cucumber Yogurt Salad
We eat a lot of hot and spicy dishes around here; a great way to cool the palate is with the delicious combination of yogurt and cucumber. This easy-to-make cucumber salad, also called "tzatziki", is a refreshing accompaniment to spicy...
Curry Rice Salad
Years ago when I was living in Japan I bought a high-tech rice cooker with a 14 hour timer and settings for white and brown rice. Occassionally I would make much too much rice, especially brown rice. Not wanting to...
Dad's Greek Salad
Let me preface this recipe by saying my dad is not Greek. But this is our family's rendition of a Greek salad and it is one of our standby favorites. The original recipe came from Bon Appetit, but it has...
Dad's Potato Salad
A month ago or so I made some potato salad. I love potato salad and was well pleased with this one. Then the next week my father made his version of potato salad. It was great! Better than mine. The...
Ginger Beef Peanut Noodle Salad
One of the great things about the international food blogging event Is My Blog Burning? is that I get motivated to try some new dishes. This month's theme is "Taste Tea" and is hosted by Clement at his gorgeous food...
Golden Beet and Pomegranate Salad
Now here's a salad for the season. Our neighbor Pat stopped me yesterday and handed me a recipe for a beet and pomegranate salad that she had pulled from an old issue of Sunset magazine. (Thank you, Pat!) Perfect timing...
Grandma's Pineapple Cucumber Lime Jello Salad
Growing up in the 60s, one would encounter a lot more Jello salads than one does these days. My grandmother used to love to make gelatin salads for us - salads molded with Jell-O gelatin. One of her favorites included...
Grandma's Sunshine Salad
Updated Years ago, in the sixties, my grandmother came to live with us. She loved to bake, especially oatmeal raisin cookies and lemon meringue pie. She also loved to make Jell-O salads. As kids we loved Jell-O in all flavors...
Grapefruit Avocado Salad with Plum Mayo Dressing
Grapefruit and avocado are one of those natural food pairings, like lamb and mint, or dark chocolate and raspberries. They just taste good together. They are perfect for a summer salad when avocados are relatively cheap and the grapefruit from...
Heirloom Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad
Summer is tomato and basil season, and there is nothing better than heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil from the garden and fresh mozzarella cheese. What are "heirloom tomatoes"? Heirloom tomatoes are what tomatoes used to be before all of the...
Honey-Glazed Grilled Chicken and Penne Salad
My father found this recipe, by Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri, in the weekend Wall St. Journal and together we gave it a go. Dad's been feeling under the weather recently, so it was nice to have him back in recipe...
Jicama Salad
Are you familiar with jicama? This tuber looks like a seriously overgrown radish and is the root of a vine native to Mexico and Central America. The flesh is crunchy, mild, and even faintly sweet, and is often served with...
Kale with Seaweed, Sesame and Ginger
Living for a while in Japan does strange things to your food preferences. Instead of thinking, "eating seaweed? PHEW!" one gets a warm glow and a faraway look in one's eyes thinking, "Eating seaweed? Ahhh. Yummm. Which kind do I...
Martha's Chinese Chicken Salad
No, not that Martha. This Martha is a friend of my friend Suzanne, who prepared her favorite chicken salad for a gathering of girlfriends a while back. A great recipe for summer picnics (you might want to double the recipe).
Molded Rhubarb Rosemary Cucumber Salad
Jelled salads. So very very retro, except perhaps in Utah, where my friend Kalyn tells me Jell-O is the state fruit. Jelled salads and aspics became popular in America in the early part of the last century when food scientists...
Napa Cabbage Picnic Salad
Every year around the Fourth of July, my friends Rich and Chigiy throw a huge barbecue party for their friends, and for number two son Dashiell, a July 4th baby. Every year, the talented Chigiy (pronounced "chi-gee") makes this terrific...
Nicoise Salad
Salad Niçoise (pronounced nee-suaz) is essentially a French composed salad, much like our American Cobb salad, but with tuna, green beans, and potatoes, instead of chicken, bacon, and avocado. Salad Niçoise hails from Nice, on the Mediterranean Sea, though like...
Orange Blossom Carrot Salad
Some dishes depend on one special ingredient, the absence of which gives you something rather ordinary, the inclusion of which creates something extraordinary. This is one of those dishes. This carrot salad comes from the Middle East, and depends on...
Orange and Beet Salad
Here's an orange and beet salad to brighten up a Winter day. The peppery arugula complements the sweetness of the beets and oranges.
Persimmon Pomegranate Fruit Salad
Based on a tip in Alice Waters' new cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, that fuyu persimmons make a good fruit salad, I begged some just picked fuyus from my neighbor and fellow blogger Andrea and set about to make...
Pesto Pasta Salad
The season for potluck barbecues is here and a quick and easy dish to prepare for a gathering is pesto pasta salad. Spiral pasta catches and hold the bits of basil pesto. You can dress up the pesto and pasta...
Poached Egg and Bacon Salad - Salad Lyonnaise
I saw this very tasty salad on Ben Trott's Vox page and just had to make it. It is a traditional French salad, called Salad Lyonnaise, made with frisée or curly endive, hot bacon, and a freshly poached egg. Not...
Potato Salad
My July/August issue of Everyday Food arrived yesterday and in it, a simple recipe for potato salad. Too simple in my opinion. The recipe also called for reduced-fat sour cream and light mayonnaise. I'm sorry folks but I don't do...
Salmon Macaroni Salad
This salmon macaroni salad is a delicious variation of your standard tuna macaroni salad.
Salmon Salad
Hot days are upon us. A great way to cool off is with a refreshingly chilled salmon salad. This salad is also one way to use up leftover salmon from a summer barbecue. Easy and quick.
Sesame and Cilantro Vermicelli Salad
If the heat of the summer is getting to you, this is a lovely spicy pasta salad for a hot day. One recent morning, on a day when the mercury eventually hit 105°F, I made this vermicelli pasta early in...
Shaved Fennel Salad
When I announced I was making a fennel Parmesan salad, my father remarked something to the effect, "That sounds like something for 'ladies who lunch'." It does, doesn't it? The idea came from a recipe in the South Beach Diet...
Shrimp and Avocado Salad
What better way to cool down in the heat of summer than with a delicious cold salad? Freshly cooked shrimp and creamy avocado are a perfect match, especially with a crisp vinaigrette. The best news? It only takes a few...
Soba Noodle Salad
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who prepared this fabulous salad for us the other day. Big, big hit. ~Elise "Very tangy and sweet! With just enough crunch from the peanuts." "It's so colorful and aromatic, you...
Spinach and Orzo Salad
"Needs more cheese." "Needs more vinegar." "Needs fewer olives." "You could add more spinach." My parents love it when I cook for them, especially when it's a new recipe and they get to be the taste testers. They happily put...
Steak Salad
Steak salad is such an easy and delicious thing to make with leftover steak. At a minimum it is simply slices of steak over salad greens with your preferred salad dressing. I tend to spiff mine up a bit with...
Summer Squash Salad
Evie suspected that when I tried her summer squash salad recipe that I would have to eat my words (no pun intended) regarding my mom being the only one who could prepare squash well. Well, I have eaten my words...
Three Bean Salad
3-bean salad is one of those quintessential American summer picnic foods. It's usually made with canned green beans instead of the cannellini white beans I'm using here. But I really don't care for canned green beans, so cannellini it is...
Tuna Macaroni Salad
Almost every other Friday growing up my mother would serve the family this tuna macaroni salad. With six kids she loved this standard; it was easy to make, filling, relatively inexpensive, and best, we all gobbled it up.
Waldorf Salad
According to the American Century Cookbook, the first Waldorf Salad was created in New York City in 1893, by Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf Astoria. The original recipe consisted only of diced red-skinned apples, celery, and mayonnaise...
Warm Green Bean and Pancetta Salad
Now this is a salad made for summer - fresh garden green beans, ripe tomatoes, Parmesan, and pancetta. You can substitute bacon for the pancetta, but if pancetta is available, we recommend using it. The flavor works marvelously well with...
White Beans and Cherry Tomato Salad
If you've ever grown cherry tomatoes in your garden, you know how wonderfully prolific they can be in summer months. The following salad combines the sweetness of summer cherry tomatoes with white beans and parsley. The secret sauce is the...
Wild Rice Cranberry Pecan Salad
This rice salad is a perfect accompaniment to many fall and winter dishes - roast chicken, stews, pork chops. You can use brown rice, wild rice (not really a rice at all), or a combination of the two. Both wild...
Wilted Watercress Salad
Old fashioned watercress is getting harder to come by, at least around here in Sacramento. Whole Foods carries watercress, but the leaves are too tender, and lack the bite of what I grew up eating. This is my mother's recipe...