Try These Fresh, Seasonal Salad Recipes

Smart chefs share delicious ways to eat your veggies effortlessly in healthy cookbooks

Jennifer Bradley Franklin,

AARP

Comments

Published August 29, 2023

five books including salad seasons, vegetable revelations, a dish for all seasons, tenderheart and truly simple on wooden table with background of vegetables and plants

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Rizzoli, Harper Wave, Chronicle Books, Alfred A. Knopf, Rodale Getty Images (2))

Late summer brings us the bounty of ripe tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn, kale, cucumbers and swiss chard, which, in addition to readily available grocery store staples and flavorful homemade dressings, make it easy to pull together fresh, satisfying salads. Whether you choose to make them as tasty side dishes or light main courses, these delicious salads are a delightful way to eat your vegetables. We share recipes from five vegetable-forward cookbooks to sample.

salad with lettuce, salmon, bacon, avocado and onion on plate; part of another plate with salad on it is to the upper right

Aubrie Pick

Salmon BLT Salad With Spicy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing

Kristin Cavallari made a name for herself as a featured personality on the hit MTV reality show Laguna Beach. She’s now a mom of three, a successful fashion and jewelry designer and author. She follows up her two best-selling cookbooks with Truly Simple: 140 Healthy Recipes for Weekday Cooking. Drawing on her experience as a busy mom striving to craft nutritious meals her family will love, she shares personal stories and her go-to recipes, 126 of which are gluten-free. The book is health-focused, and Cavallari’s recipes are fresh, flavorful and, most importantly, fun.

Try it: Salmon BLT Salad With Spicy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing

salad with arugula and sliced almonds in bowl with wooden tongs

Kristin Teig

Arugula Salad With Whole-Lemon Vinaigrette

Summer is a natural time for salads — gardens are bursting, temperatures are soaring and salads are light, fresh and easy to eat. But for Sheela Prakash, contributing food editor at The Kitchn and author of Salad Seasons: Vegetable-Forward Dishes All Year, salads are a menu staple all year. In this beautifully illustrated cookbook, she takes readers through the basics of making a top-notch salad (pay attention to textures, think beyond the usual produce, learn how to mix and match) and offers tasty, easy-to-follow recipes for every season. You’ll definitely want to add them to your regular meal rotation.

Try it: Arugula Salad With Whole-Lemon Vinaigrette

salad with mint leaves, sugar snap peas, turnips, strawberries and quinoa in bowl

Hetty Lui McKinnon

Miso-Maple Sugar Snap Pea, Turnip and Strawberry Salad

When top food personalities such as Nigella Lawson and Food Network host Molly Yeh sing a book’s praises, you know it’s a winner. Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds was inspired in part by author Hetty Lui McKinnon’s admiration for her father, a Chinese immigrant to Australia where McKinnon grew up. He worked in a Sydney market and brought home crates of fresh items, and McKinnon fell in love with such produce. In this lush book, she features 22 “essential” fruits and vegetables, around which she builds more than 180 delectable recipes. This salad showcases her bicultural perspective with a deeply flavorful miso-maple dressing sure to impress.

Try it: Miso-Maple Sugar Snap Pea, Turnip and Strawberry Salad

salad with kale, strawberries, celery, pecans and cheese on plate with fork

Andrew Thomas Lee

Baby Kale and Strawberry Salad

Over the past decade, James Beard Award-winning chef Steven Satterfield of Atlanta’s Miller Union has made a name for himself by offering a veggie-forward menu that even staunch carnivores love. He works closely with local farmers to bring the freshest seasonal produce to the plate — then he lets it shine. In his second cookbook, Vegetable Revelations: Inspiration for Produce-Forward Cooking, Satterfield teaches readers to show off produce to its best advantage. The book is arranged by botanical category — legumes, mushrooms, roots, leaves, stalks and more — and offers new, unexpected ways to enjoy nature’s bounty. It’s not a vegetarian book, but plants are the real stars here.

Try it: Baby Kale and Strawberry Salad

salad with tomatoes, herbs, nectarines and corn in a bowl

Kathryn Pauline

Summer Panzanella

If the prospect of coming up with new meals feels daunting, A Dish for All Seasons: 125+ Recipe Variations for Delicious Meals All Year Round is just the thing to shake you out of a rut. Author and photographer Kathryn Pauline, of the Saveur Award-winning blog Cardamom and Tea, organized this serviceable, nearly 300-page book to really work for home cooks. She starts with 26 base recipes — for simple items such as a frittata, crostinis, roasted vegetables or a sheet pan dinner — and offers four seasonal variations (spring, summer, fall and winter), so you can cook from the book all year. Her recipe for Summer Panzanella includes juicy tomatoes, fresh herbs and a surprise ingredient: nectarines. If you fall in love with the summer version, the cookbook offers tips to transition the salad to fall.

Try it: Summer Panzanella

%{postComment}%

Jennifer Bradley Franklin is an Atlanta-based journalist, editor and author who has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, People magazine, USA Today and others. She's an avid traveler, ballroom dancer and is more than a little coffee obsessed. Read more of her work at jenniferbradleyfranklin.com.