Salads

This simple salad is inspired by the tapas bars and asadores (grill-focused restaurants) in and around Córdoba. It highlights sweet and tender Little Gem lettuce, adorned with warm, garlicky olive oil, sherry vinegar, anchovies and a sprinkle of smoky paprika.

Chef Hugh Acheson combines just three ingredients (lettuce, radishes and Parmigiano-Reggiano) in this delightful salad. The key is in the dressing, which is just a basic red wine vinaigrette blended with a tasty dill pickle.

Nancy Silverton's lovely salad, adapted from her Mozza Cookbook, features Little Gem lettuce, a smaller, sweeter variety of romaine. If you can't find it, use hearts of romaine instead.

If you're looking for a simple but special salad that will hold up on the table beautifully during a long meal (no more wilted greens!), this fresh-herb-and-buttermilk-dressed salad from cookbook author Melissa Clark is perfect.

F&W’s Justin Chapple knows how to make any salad more interesting: pickle the vegetables. The spicy dressing is vibrant, too.

This salad from Grace Parisi brilliantly combines many exciting ingredients into one amazing recipe—pickled vegetables, uncommon produce, ancient grains and a cross-cultural dressing that includes miso and chipotle chile in adobo.

"I grew up with a bunch of hippies, so I ate a lot of quinoa," Kerry Simon says. "I thought the taste was so cool." For this tabbouleh-like salad with tomatoes and roasted bell peppers, Simon simmers quinoa in water and orange juice to give it a citrus hit.

Chef Jamie Malone roasts beets in vinegar so they’re sweet and tangy all the way through, as if they were dressed from within. F&W’s Justin Chapple takes Malone’s vinegar-roasted beets and adds them to this healthy salad.

“In the winter, I love to have a bright-tasting salad,” says designer and blogger Athena Calderone about this side dish. Honeycrisps are her favorite apples, for their sweet-tart flavor and crisp, juicy texture, but you can use the variety you like best.

This delicious roasted-tomato vinaigrette is enhanced with blue cheese, which makes the dressing extra-thick and rich. It's a great contrast to the crisp lettuce, salty bacon and spicy pepitas that top the salad.

These days, chefs love to add pickled ingredients to their salads. Chef Michael Tusk pickles quince with ginger, spices and white wine vinegar; the strong sweet-tart flavors would overwhelm delicate lettuces, but the bold, bitter greens here are just right.

This perfect summer salad combines both fresh and dried figs in a sweet-tangy vinaigrette. Amelia O’Reilly recommends using purple Mission figs for their balance of acidity and sweetness. “The brown figs are fat and one-note sweet,” she says.

This salad is a favorite of the Food52 online community because it tastes like it takes much more work than it really does. Flavoring the vinegar by soaking an onion in it results in a deeply flavorful vinaigrette, with none of the harshness that can often come from raw onion. Food52 executive editor Kristen Miglore adapted the recipe from the Toro Bravo cookbook by John Gorham and Liz Crain.

Chef Jerry Traunfeld, who traveled through India in 2007, flavors this creamy chickpea salad with aromatic herbs and Indian spices, among them mustard, cumin and fennel seeds.

Crisp raw fennel, pungent onion, and a sprightly lemon and orange dressing make for a delectable salad. A food processor with a slicing attachment cuts the fennel in no time.

Dandelion, mint, lemon zest and olives all have an aspect of bitterness, which is probably why they work so well together. Mild, creamy white beans soften the robust flavors in this perfect-for-late-fall salad.

Use this recipe as a template for any mixed mushroom-and-grain salad. Excellent options include brown rice, wild rice, black or white barley, farro or couscous.

Baby potatoes get a chipotle glaze before being roasted, adding incredible flavor to this healthy potato salad, which substitutes Greek yogurt for mayonnaise.

Starting with cooked chicken—leftovers, perhaps, or a store-bought rotisserie chicken—keeps the preparation time short. If you want just chicken salad with no greens, skip the lettuce; double the chicken, cucumber, bell pepper, onion, and tarragon; and toss them with the dressing.

Roasted carrots and raw avocados are an unexpected, if increasingly popular, combination. The grapefruit dressing adds tang and sweetness and roasted almonds add healthy crunch.

This elegant and refreshing dessert layers fresh citrus with toasted pistachios and mint.

“I like to call this a spoon salad,” Nicolaus Balla says, “because it’s like a soup and a salad in one dish. You want to eat it with a spoon and a huge loaf of bread next to you.” He lets the salami and cheese sit with the vegetables for at least an hour. This creates juices at the bottom of the bowl—perfect for dipping bread.

Giuseppe Tentori's quinoa salad is a delightful mix of cucumber, thin green beans, parsley and feta. What makes it special is that Tentori pickles the radishes in red wine vinegar and sugar before tossing them into the salad, where they add a puckery crunch.

Melissa Rubel Jacobson's refreshingly crunchy, tangy salad makes for an excellent spring lunch or super quick dinner.

A stylish mix of leafy greens and fresh herbs is a lovely bed for plump grilled scallops. Mix and match the herbs to your liking; you could even use all parsley if you prefer. Just make sure you have a total of two cups.

Kenny Rochford, general manager of Medlock Ames winery, pickles Chioggia beets from the winery gardens to use in the tasting room. They're perfect in a salad with parsley and fennel fronds.

People think a Greek salad is mostly vegetables and cheese, but by adding simply roasted salmon, it becomes a terrific main course.

Richard Blais garnishes his take on a caprese salad of tomato and mozzarella with pickled walnuts, made by tossing candied walnuts with a little vinegar. (Alternatively, use British pickled walnuts, available at some specialty food stores.) "The blue cheese and the celery give this dish a little 'adultness,'" he says.

For this refreshingly crunchy salad, Mark Peel adds mineral-rich romaine lettuce, frisée and sliced radishes to the classic Waldorf salad mix of apples, celery and walnuts. In place of the traditional mayonnaise-based dressing, he makes a lemon-walnut oil vinaigrette flavored with cumin.

This delicious, healthy salad makes use of sweet broccoli stems.

Anna Zepaltas grew up preparing tamales in her mother’s Southern California kitchen, but she also loves Indian and Middle Eastern dishes. Cumin, coriander and cardamom punch up this salad.

With similar ingredients you'd find wrapped up in taco, this brightly colored shrimp salad is light but very much satisfying. Enjoy with chips and beer on a hot day.

In this luxurious winter salad, Le Coucou chef Daniel Rose contrasts the buttery sweetness of scallops with the tangy crunch of fresh apples and endive.

It’s so naughty to eat a healthyish green salad studded with rich, salty nuggets of cheese and salami. And really delicious.

A trio of chicories—crimson-edged radicchio, slender Belgian endive, and leafy escarole—composes this late-winter salad from Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. The vinaigrette is based on salmorejo, a sherry vinegar–laced tomato soup from southern Spain. We garnish the salad just like the soup, with thin slices of serrano ham and hard-boiled eggs.

In this seasonal salad, Chicago chef Sarah Grueneberg takes inspiration from the translation of her last name and the translation of her restaurant name (both mean “green mountain,” in German and Italian, respectively). She amps up a zesty buttermilk dressing with charred ramps (scallions would also be delicious) then drizzles the dressing over crisp Little Gem lettuce, celery, and baby turnips.

TV chef Andrew Zimmern was inspired to create this dish by the mention of a “spirited salad” in Fergus Henderson’s first book, Nose to Tail Eating. Here, Zimmern tosses peppery leaves with a mustard–cider vinegar dressing tamed with cream and hazelnut oil.