Summer weather has come to New England, at least temporarily, and it has put us in the mood for summer salads! Salads are, of course, appropriate year round, but the nature of salad as a mostly cold or room temperature dish lends itself particularly well to warm weather dining.
Dining al fresco is a favorite warm weather pastime
You can level up a basic garden salad of greens with fresh-from-the-garden fruit, herbs, and veggies and this favorite 5 minute homemade vinaigrette (recipe HERE). But here is a roundup of three of our summer favorites along with an update on the continuing saga of our black bean stash…
3 of our Favorite Summer Salads
Hearty Quinoa Salad with Lime Dressing
We keep this Quinoa Salad on hand almost weekly all summer long. It is hearty enough to serve as a light entree, perfect for lunch or a snack, and makes an excellent side dish for grilled protein for a weeknight gourmet dinner - in fact we are having it with grilled shrimp tonight!
For bonus points it is incidentally vegan and very healthy, in addition to being delicious!
Roasted Potato Salad
Okay, I know everyone has a favorite potato salad, and honestly, I like the deli kind from the grocery store just fine. But THIS potato salad is the one absolutely worth making if you are making your own! It is in our standard repertoire as a side dish for ALL the summer BBQ holidays and entertaining. Roasted Potato Salad with tarragon and bacon (Recipe HERE).
It gets requested often, okay? ‘Nuff said. It does involve optional bacon, but is bacon ever really optional? :)
Potato Salad with bacon
BBQ Chicken Salad
This is one of our favorite weeknight summer suppers. It is really fast to throw together and special enough to be company-worthy. It is inspired by our favorite Cheesecake Factory restaurant entree. Also more corn. And beans…and lord knows we needed bean recipes?! BBQ Chicken Salad (Recipe here).
Our favorite summer entree salad BBQ Chicken Salad
And this is the Cheesecake Factory version of BBQ Chicken Salad
And finally, the current state of our black bean supply…
News Flash: We are down to the LAST pound of our black beans…as modeled by the diva
We are finally coming to the end of our somewhat ill-advised 25 lb pandemic black bean purchase! Spoiler alert: 25 lbs is a REALLY LOT of dried black beans, and we did order them at the beginning of quarantine - yes, during the same time as the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. 🙄
Happily, YOU can just buy a can of black beans for these recipes and call it done! But we have linked to directions for cooking your own very tasty ones in the the recipe post in case you want to.
