Green Bean Salad

Mark Peel, chef at Los Angeles's esteemed Campanile, opened the Point, a casual new breakfast-and-lunch spot, in Culver City. Here he flavors roasted cauliflower and green beans with a mild curry powder.

This simple and fresh-tasting salad, enlivened by salty olives and fresh cilantro, is a nice way to showcase fresh porotos (beans), a staple in the Huneeus household. The salad can be made with dried cannellini beans or, in a pinch, canned white beans.

This lovely side dish of light, fluffy bulgur studded with bits of toasted almonds and crisp green beans is a wonderful alternative to rice.

In this salad, tender haricots verts get tossed with crunchy strips of carrot, red pepper and parsnip. When TV personality Rachael Ray (who is originally from upstate New York) visited the Beekman farm, Lee Woolver made a version of this salad with bacon, but it's just as delicious without.

Salade Nicoise is one of the great summer dishes of Southern France. It's the centerpiece of a party that's all about sunny Mediterranean style, from the wine to the plates to the tea towels.

"Blood oranges are part of my Sicily fascination," Renato Poliafito says. He uses the segments to add color and tang to green beans and reduces the juice with balsamic vinegar to make the dressing.

The Good News "The first time I tasted farro, it changed my life," says Melissa Kelly about the ancient grain that's rich in fiber, complex carbohydrates and magnesium. She's particularly fond of the nutty, chewy farro from Anson Mills, a Charleston-based company that's nationally famous for its grits (ansonmills.com).

This supersimple bean-and-tomato salad, tossed with a tarragon-flavored dressing, is perfect for summertime picnics, like the kind Paul Virant's mother would prepare when he was a child. "She would make tomato salad, potato salad and fried chicken the night before, so we'd have everything ready the next day," he says.

This crunchy, colorful salad pairs blanched corn and green beans with an incredible dressing for a great throw-together meal.

F&W's Kay Chun transforms her creamy potato salad with crisp green beans and a lovely tarragon-shallot vinaigrette.

Private chef Michael Emanuel's late-harvest salad gets its surprisingly meaty richness from the sliced red bell peppers he roasts in a clay oven; a broiler also works well.