3. Warm Halloumi Quinoa Salad
Halloumi is a traditional fresh cheese from Cyprus that has a higher melting point than most other cheeses, so slices keep their shape even when grilled.

4. Primavera Lettuce Salad
Simple salads can be a refreshing course before dessert. Ricotta salata is an Italian pressed and dried salted ricotta made from cow's or sheep's milk, the latter being especially tasty. You can substitute feta cheese if you like or you can top the salad with some fresh goat's milk cheese as well.

5. Evergreen Salad
Like olive oil, avocado oil is a healthy alternative. It also features excellent viscosity, which means you can use less oil than you normally would.

6. Wilted Spinach Salad
Featuring festive colours and a fresh, bracing edge, this salad is special without being fussy to prepare.

7. Vibrant Dandelion Shrimp Salad
Satisfy hearty appetites with this colourful zesty salad featuring fresh dandelion leaves.

 

8. Chiffonade Salad on Belgian Endive Points
As colourful and fresh-looking as a spring flower, this salad makes a lovely opener for a dinner party.

 

Potato salads
9. Indian-Spiced Roasted Potato and Chickpea Salad
One of the best ways to coax flavour out of any vegetable is to roast it. Serve this memorable salad warm or at room temperature.

10. New Potato Salad with Tuna
For a wonderful treat, replace the tuna with flaked Poached Salt Cod.

 

 

11. Low-Fat Potato Salad
Serve warm or at room temperature.

 

 

 

Fruit salads
12. Avocado Salad with Prickly Pear Sauce
If you like, serve the avocados over a bed of shredded crisp greens such as iceberg or romaine lettuce.

13. Tropical Fruit Salad with Lychees
The syrup from canned lychees is a tasty, convenient way to flavour the fruit salad.

14. Cantaloupe and Watercress Salad
If you aren't serving this salad as part of a vegetarian meal, you can top it with one or two slices of cured ham, such as prosciutto, serrano or Westphalian ham.

15. Thai Crab and Mango Salad
In Thailand, this type of traditional seafood salad is often fiery hot with loads of fresh Thai bird's-eye peppers. To reduce the heat, seed your peppers.

16. Shrimp and Grapefruit Salad
This salad, which is loosely based on a number of similarly flavoured Southeast Asian salads, makes good use of grapefruit.

 

 

17. Watermelon, Radish and Cucumber Salad
This novel salad tastes as great as it looks.

 

 

 

Veggie and legume salads
18. Filipino Cucumber Salad
This is a refreshing summer salad. In the Philippines, cane or palm vinegar would replace the rice vinegar.

19. Lima Bean and Ham Salad
You can add a little heat to this attractive salad by replacing half of the sweet pepper with a hot banana pepper, if you like.

20. Red Cabbage Salad
The colour and intense flavour of red cabbage makes for a beautiful coleslaw. It particularly benefits from salting before making the salad because it is tougher than green cabbage.

21. Grilled Eggplant and Garlic Salad
If desired, you can replace the coriander with the same amount of parsley or simply sprinkle a handful of chopped fresh mint over the salad.

22. Spicy Zucchini Salad
This Northern Chinese and Korean-style side salad is best with small, young zucchini. It makes a lively, garlicky accompaniment for an Asian meal or with grilled poultry, meat or fish.

Pasta and grain salads
23. Quinoa Salad with Dried Cranberries and Apricots
Fruity flavours marry exceptionally well with the graininess of the quinoa.  

 

24. Israeli Couscous with Roasted Vegetables in Cumin-Cinnamon Dressing
This fresh-tasting salad calls for Israeli couscous. It has much larger balls of toasted pasta than regular couscous, which is made of smaller rounds of semolina dough, coated with wheat flour.

25. Fresh Quinoa Veggie Salad
The light texture of quinoa makes this high-protein ancient New World grain quite appropriate in salads. Use South American light-coloured quinoa or the nutty brown quinoa harvested from Saskatchewan.

26. Tomato and Spelt Salad
Spelt (also known by the Italian name farro) is an ancient type of wheat with a pleasant nutty flavour that is available in health and bulk food stores.

27. Italian Sausage, Couscous and Wilted Kale Salad
Israeli, or pearl, couscous is a larger couscous that cooks just like pasta, absorbs the salad dressing nicely and adds a pleasant chew. You can substitute seared pork chops for the sausage, if you like.

 

28. Smoked-Paprika Chicken Salad with Tangy Lemon Yogurt Dressing
Roasting enhances the natural sweetness of carrots and radishes, while smoked paprika and lemon add punch. It's the smoked paprika that gives the chicken a charred appearance, too. 

 

29. Thai Tuna Salad
Wake up your taste buds with this vibrant take on tuna salad.