Summer is the time for casual entertaining like cookouts and bbqs and dinners on the deck. Summer is also the time for fresh salads with all the fresh produce you can find at the store! To help you find a great salad for your next get together, I’ve put together six of some of my favorite easy summer salads.
I love salads at any time of the year, but there is something special about summer salads. All the fresh fruits and vegetables are so inspiring that I find myself filling plates and bowls with different combinations and taking ideas from all sorts of Mediterranean cuisines trying to find the best salads I can make. With tasty and easy salads like these this summer, you might just fill up on salad at your next BBQ and forget the meat. 🙂 (Note: The potato salad nicoise as written is not vegetarian since the dressing contains anchovy paste.)
1. Potato Salad Nicoise
Yes, though the anchovy paste adds some great flavor to the dressing for this salad, you can skip it to make it veggie friendly. Either way, a salad of crisp tender green beans and potatoes tossed with lots of fresh basil, summer tomatoes, and black olives is sure to be a hit! It’s time to try something different than the usual mayonnaise based potato salad.
2. Peach and Blueberry Spinach Salad
Maybe instead of a potato salad, you want a green salad? This spinach salad is full of fresh blueberries and peaches along with creamy goat cheese and simple glazed pecans. Hungry yet? How about adding a blueberry vinaigrette to top it off! This is a spinach salad which says SUMMER.
3. Traditional Greek Chopped Salad
Traditional Greek salad is full of chopped veggies like cucumbers and tomatoes and onions. With it’s sturdy base, this salad can stand up to summer heat without wilting as soon as you put it out. Fresh herbs provide a punch of flavor and the salad is finished with a homemade Greek dressing (so much better than bottled!).
4. Cold Sweet Potato Salad with Cranberries and Pecans
Love sweet potatoes? I do too and I don’t like to wait until fall to enjoy them! So I developed an easy summer salad featuring sweet potatoes. This potato salad will give you hints of Thanksgiving with the flavors of pecans and cranberries, but it’s perfect for a BBQ alongside grilled meats and watermelon lemonade.
5. Green Bean Salad with Goat Cheese and Almonds
This salad is a long time favorite in our house! It’s great for a weeknight dinner and great for a crowd. We love the tender beans (green, yellow, or a mix), the crumbled goat cheese, and the dried cranberries together. And the fried almonds are amazing sprinkled over the top. The only tough part of this salad is not eating all the fried almonds before you serve.
6. Grilled Italian Pasta Salad
Grilling the vegetables in this Italian pasta salad gives them an extra dimension of flavor which elevates this pasta salad from the usual. The smoky flavor is wonderful with the fresh mozzarella and you have to make the homemade Italian dressing to go with it! This is a salad I’ve made again and again and it’s always well received. You can make it hours ahead of time and have it in the fridge waiting for your party.
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