Salads come in several forms and can appeal to a wide variety of tastes, cuisines, and preferences. But it takes more than tossing a few ingredients together to truly make a great salad.
With these salad ideas, we look at inspiration on serving and preparing salads that are sure to give them an edge and a style that puts them a league above those soulless salads that so happen to be the usual case.
So, let’s get some inspiration to give our salads a new lease of life.
Best Salad Ideas You Can Employ
1. Pepperoni Pasta Salad
The pepperoni pasta salad is quite a usual affair, but nobody said you couldn’t put more style and substance into it! Fresh ingredients go a long way in making this salad what it’s supposed to be, but it’s possible to work with what you have.
The main ingredients for this salad are tomatoes, pepperoncini, green bell peppers, red onions, and olives as the veggies. You can use your choice of pasta, though macaroni works well. Other ingredients are parmesan cheese, mozzarella, pepperoni, and Italian dressing.
2. Quinoa Salad With Avocado Dill Dressing
Here’s a salad that could very well stand its ground as a healthy and delicious meal. As the name implies, this salad has (cooked) quinoa along with avocado and dill for the dressing. While these are the named ingredients in the recipe name, the ingredient list is actually quite extensive.
Also, the salad involves cooking several of its ingredients, some of which are cooked separately and then added together to the mix with all the other ingredients. So, while it takes some time and effort to whip up, this salad is an amazing treat to enjoy.
3. Creamy Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
Want a salad that’s a crowd pleaser and will have people flocking to it? This creamy bacon ranch pasta salad is your answer.
You can use any type of pasta you like, though the recipe prefers rotini pasta. The bacon it uses is in small quantities, with the goal to add some crunch and deliciousness. There are several other ingredients here, including grape tomatoes, broccoli, green peas, shredded cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and some dried herbs and seasonings.
4. Ranch Chicken Salad
Photogenic and delicious, this salad has its ducks, or rather, chickens, in order. It provides a balanced meal with a lot of nutrition and nourishment, without going heavy on calories.
Generally, it takes about 30 minutes to get this salad ready, though it could be a bit longer considering that there’s a good amount of time to be spent in prepping ingredients.
5. Orzo Chicken Salad
We expect salads to be healthy and this one plays the part perfectly. Plus, it has some interesting ingredients that are quick to grab attention.
The cherry tomatoes add color, flavor, and something of an umami element to the recipe. The cooked chicken breasts bring a lovely texture and deliciousness, the goat cheese is quite a flavorful ingredient, and the spinach adds healthy eating and a nice color contrast to the whole meal.
6. This Stylish Ham Salad
For all the good things that can be said about ham salads, they’re usually not considered as having a lovely or remarkable look. Well, this salad changes, or rather, challenges that stereotype. This ham salad looks great, has a nice texture, and retains the nourishing goodness of a classic ham salad.
The stars of the recipe here are diced ham and crisp celery. Accompanying them in the mix are dill pickles, Dijon mustard, red onions, parsley, and mayo.
7. This Wonderful Cobb Salad
There are plenty of ways to choose your preferred styling or a Cobb salad dressing. And sometimes, the recipe can go beyond the usual bounds to something as striking as the one we see here.
Giving it more of a healthy and desirable twist, this Cobb salad includes organic lettuce, avocado, tomato, bacon, ham, red onions, and several other ingredients that make it a lovely pick for lunch.
8. These Matchstick Cheese Slices
This salad looks ripe as a treat for the tastebuds. The recipe involves cutting mozzarella cheese into small and thin sticks that pack a good helping of flavor and texture to go along with the other ingredients of the recipe.
I suppose the most time consuming part of this recipe is slicing the mozzarella into those small sticks, thus giving it the name matchstick cheese slices salad. You can play around with other ingredients, but the recipe suggests using bacon, red onions, and some salad greens to get the salad going.
9. Steak Salad
Look out for this wonderful combination of steak and salad greens that make for a happy, hearty, and nourishing meal. The recipe is intended as something of a gourmet offering, with high-end ingredients and a stylized serving.
Following its gourmet style, the ingredient list includes marinated steak tips, lime-cured onions, goat cheese, tomatoes, pickled carrots, and a few more usual ingredients for a satisfying salad.
10. A Chicago Dog Salad
The recipe derives its name and a good part of its deliciousness through the use of Chicago-style hot dogs that are the major ingredient of this recipe. Sliced and placed in a mix of veggies and salad greens, these hot dogs provide taste and flavor to the salad.
Plus, with all of these ingredients, the recipe manages to stay on a low-carb path. It’s also somewhat easy to prepare and takes about 30 minutes to put together, with much of the time dedicated to the hot dogs.
11. Mediterranean Shrimp Salad
The classic Mediterranean shrimp salad is always a good choice for a healthy salad or a delicious meal. There are several ingredients in the recipe, including lettuce, chopped red onions, beans, tomatoes, and a good dose of champagne vinegar.
However, even with those delicious ingredients, the focus largely remains on the shrimp, which is the heart of the recipe. The properly cooked, tender poached shrimp is the heart of this salad.
12. Easy Kani Salad Recipe
Kani Salad, also known as the Crab-stick Salad is a Japanese recipe with wonderful ingredients and easy to prep setting. It takes about 15 minutes to put this salad together, making it an easy recipe that’s good for all the times when you don’t want to spend too much effort into cooking.
Though quick and easy to prepare, the recipe has a gourmet feel and wonderful looks about it. Much of that could be attributed to the use of exotic ingredients like the crab sticks. Incidentally, despite the name, crab sticks aren’t made from crabs, but rather from a colored fish paste called surimi.
13. Tuna Salad
Got tuna, will salad! This wonderful and easy to prepare tuna salad relies on the use of simple, spicy canned tuna to get hold of its main ingredient and all kinds of deliciousness!
Other ingredients for the recipe include iceberg lettuce, green leaf lettuce, red onions, cilantro, and celery. The list is simple enough, you can have this recipe ready in a jiffy. Much like the salad, the dressing too makes use of simple ingredients. These include mayo, lemon juice, fennel, along with some salt and pepper.
14. Avocado Egg Salad
The presentation and style of this recipe is worth appreciating. It is a healthy salad, but it very much looks like a wonderfully decadent snack.
At the base of the salad is a bread, topped with healthy ingredients like a ripe avocado, hard boiled eggs, and a combination of diced red onions, parsley, and some Dijon mustard. The seasoning is handled by salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.