These Summer Salads Make the Most of the Season’s Best Produce

If you’re looking for a guest-worthy main-dish salad, stop right here. This one delivers a blend of firm and tender textures and sweet-spicy flavors, plus make-ahead options and a time-saving method for browning shallots in the microwave. Tip: The leftover shallot oil can be used for a second salad.

The combination of creamy Kewpie mayonnaise, tangy Dijon mustard, and crunchy takanazuke pickles creates a delightful balance of flavors and textures. It’s a versatile dish that can be enjoyed warm or cold, making it ideal for picnics or barbecues.

For this salad, chef Alex Seidel of Mercantile in Denver uses a mix of tomato varieties—whichever are ripest at the moment in his greenhouse. The eggplant “croutons” are small cubes, breaded in seasoned panko and briskly fried.

This tangy, exuberant salad comes together quickly, considering the size of the recipe (and it can easily be halved or even quartered, in direct proportion). And it’s even quicker if you do it with friends, so the recipe is written with that in mind.

In the heat of summer, you want a salad that won’t wilt. Sweet papaya and earthy kale pick up smoke on the grill. Smaller, tender bunches of kale work best. L.A. chef and recipe developer Charles Olalia keeps the papaya slices and kale leaves whole to minimize prep work when camping, but you can cut them into smaller pieces after grilling if you are cooking at home. Leaving the skin on the papaya keeps it from falling apart on the grill.

This dish unites two of our favorite salads with a light, herby vinaigrette. Add crusty bread and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Using both fresh and smoked jalapeños (chipotles) give this version of chimichurri, the Argentine steak sauce, lots of flavor without being wildly spicy.

Adding soy sauce to salad dressing gives simple summer vegetables an umami depth.

Jennifer Jasinski, chef and co-owner of Rioja in Denver, makes her salad with fresh Colorado peaches and a Spanish blue cheese, but it’s also good made with many Western blue cheeses.

At the farmers’ market, look for aged sheep’s-milk cheese; bunches of mint; and small, tender yellow and green zucchini.

Cook some of the vegetables for this dish right in the fire, which infuses the salad with smokiness. Serve it with fried eggs or any type of grilled meat or fish.

Matthew Lewis, chef and owner of the Where Ya At Matt? food truck in Seattle, makes this side dish in the height of summer, when melons are at their best. The cool, sweet juice of the fruit really hits the spot on a hot day.

In the height of summer, you won’t find a better side dish for ribs than this deceptively simple combination of peak-season produce. Try bringing it to a party, too.

Slightly spicy, deeply flavored, and extremely refreshing, this super simple cucumber salad is one of those welcome summer dishes that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Chef Chris Cosentino is known for adventurous dishes like this one, a meet-up of mild grilled calamari (squid), fresh produce, and exciting seasonings. He grills the calamari over almond wood plus regular charcoal briquets; for the home cook, he recommends easy-to-find mesquite hardwood charcoal. To make the dish as fiery as Cosentino likes it, use 2 tbsp. black pepper and 2 tsp. Aleppo pepper, and don’t seed the serrano chile.

Jessica Koslow, the chef and owner of LA’s Sqirl restaurant, couldn’t stand tomatoes as a child. They gave her the creeps. But on her journey of becoming a pioneer of new-wave California cooking, she started to love them. In this recipe, she celebrates good summer tomatoes by pairing them with ultra-crunchy oven-crisped potatoes, an ingenious gluten-free twist on panzanella (bread and tomato salad). Make sure the potatoes get almost as crisp as croutons; if they’re moist, let them bake longer.

“This salad is the little sister of the Provençal dish called a grand aioli,” says chef Amaryll Schwertner. She omits the seafood of the grand version and focuses instead on “the colors, flavors, and textures of summer produce.” To make a half-batch of aioli (a deliciously garlicky mayonnaise), whisk it by hand and use 1 egg yolk rather than half of a whole egg.

Made with white nectarines, this savory-sweet caprese just might trump the classic version. Burrata cheese adds richness, but feel free to sub in fresh mozzarella.

Meet your new picnic staple: a potato salad classic enough to satisfy purists, but with onions, peas, and tarragon for fresh flavor and pretty hits of green.

You can use any melon that’s at peak ripeness, but the salad is prettier and tastier if you use multiple varieties.

This herb vinaigrette-dressed pasta salad keeps better than a mayo-based one from the deli—and tastes better too.

The sublime combination of sweet fruit and salty blue cheese means you can keep the rest of the salad simple. White balsamic vinegar gives the dressing a light flavor.

Grilled Yukon gold potato halves combine with a mixture of tomatoes, capers, oregano, olives, and anchovies for a Mediterranean-style potato salad side dish.

If you’re serving these vegetables with grilled meat, grill the vegetables first. They’re good eaten at room temperature.

Yuzu’s ultra-aromatic, floral flavor makes it a knockout with seafood and mango. A soy-ginger mayo and a sprinkle of minced kaffir lime leaves add more layers of complexity.

Chef David Tanis created this dish after a day at the market when everything that appealed to him was a shade of gold. We’ve adapted it from his cookbook, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes.

A refreshing option for dinner on a hot summer night. Ingredients can be prepped and pasta cooked a day ahead of time and chilled (add 1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil to the cooked pasta). Toss everything together just before serving

The yogurt dressing here is a fresher, lighter take on ranch. Since the herbs are used so generously, choose tender sprigs and leaves. Waxy potato varieties such as Reddale work best for salads; just-harvested ones taste the sweetest.

Using a few colors and different sizes of tomatoes will make this recipe especially beautiful.

Zesty and filling, this no-cook shrimp salad combines fresh summer ingredients, such as mangoes and avocadoes, with a quick three-ingredient dressing.

No bread is involved, but this is hearty enough for a quick weeknight meal—and makes great use of vine-ripened tomatoes.