Ideas for salads please

I often add dried cranberries to salads. You can get them in Aldinand where they sell dried fruit. In Summer I often do a watermelon salad with watermelon, fetta cheese, cucumber, red onion or spring onions. You can use a fruity vinegar and olive oil or just olive oil and lemon juice. Easy too.

I add sliced strawberries and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds.
I sometimes add pinenuts or toasted cashews.

Roasted pumpkin and beetroot salad.

Cut pumpkin and beetroot into roughly 1" cubes and bake until tender.
Toss cooled pumpkin and beetroot together with lettuce, spinach or rocket add pieces of feta cheese and dress with balsamic dressing. Add toasted pine nuts for added crunch.

Greek salad - feta, olives etc. Salad Nicoise- tuna, cold potatoes, green beans, etc.

One of our favourites is broccoli, avocados and red pepper in oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

Thanks for the ideas so far, I’ll definitely try them.

I get fed up with just the usual as you mentioned, been adding beetroot, fresh in the packet (not jars), or peas, prawns, and seedless grapes, like you might find with a ploughmans. I don’t put all these food on the same salad but to vary it. Cottage cheese with pineapple I like too.

Grated carrot or courgette, orange segments, olives, artichoke (the sections you buy in jars of oil), canned mixed salad beans, strips of grilled pepper, croutons....not all at once.

Marinated mushrooms: Slice mushrooms, toss in vinegar & oil dressing.
I vary the oils & vinegar but usually olive oil & balsamic vinegar. Leave to marinade for at least 1 hour.

Grated raw carrot, sweet corn and peeled fresh orange are always included in our salads, as well as new potatoes or potato salad, beetroot, boiled eggs.........the list is endless, just have to use your imagination.

I do one with New Potatoes, fine green beans, tomatoes, red onion, with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I sometimes add some olives or capers or rocket leaves as well. Also lettuce ( usually Gem ) finely chopped beetroot and grated carrot with a creamy dressing , I use Paul Newman's Ranch dressing.

Olives are a favourite, beetroot, grated cheese, hard boiled egg cut into two, balsamic vinegar, tinned salmon.

Our favourite is a mango salad/salsa served as a side dish.
I use one slightly under ripe mango cut into thin julienne strips plus the following in roughly similar amounts and size of pieces, red and orange sweet peppers, raw carrot, and red onion, mix well then add lemon or lime juice, salt, freshly ground black pepper, sugar, garlic granules and chilli flakes and lots of fresh coriander leaves roughly cut up. I sometimes add long strips of spring onions and reduce the red onion. Stir well, addingadding1 more lemon/lime juice so that it is wet then leave for as long as you can. Stir then taste. At this point you might want to add more sugar or salt and more chilli if there are no children to cater for. Ideally leave overnight in the fridge but it can be eaten straight away. Any left can be chopped smaller and used the next day as a salsa with wraps or sandwiches.

Nobody has mentioned coleslaw which is a very popular side salad.
Kitchen goddesses will no doubt make their own mayonnaise but for the rest of us….crush a peg of garlic until creamy, mix into your usual Mayonnaise or salad cream and allow to stand while you prepare the veg.
Very finely slice a white cabbage, different coloured sweet peppers, red onion, the green of spring onions and celery leaves, using a potato peeler make slivers of raw carrot. Mix with enough of the garlic mayonnaise to just coat all the ingredients.
If someone doesn’t like garlic you can add tomato purée or lime/lemon juice instead.
I sometimes add in red cabbage, a little for colour, but only just before serving as it “bleeds” into the mayonnaise.

Quick tip. If you are vegan Hellman’s Vegan Mayonnaise tastes just like real mayonnaise. No idea how they do that.

DH’s favourite. Cooked, cooled tender stem broccoli, uncooked spinach, lettuce, asparagus. Toasted pine nuts and almonds. Thin slices of cucumber. Other nuts and seeds and grilled halloumi.
Lovely

Chopped dessert apples with cheddar chopped into small pieces. Add mayonnaise to taste or not. Pepper.

Chopped cucumber and mint in yoghourt. Mint makes yog a lot more interesting.

One of my favourites is a courgette salad. Slice thickly, and fry gently with some crushed garlic until softened. Take off the heat, and add chopped mint, sultanas, and some crumbled feta cheese, salt and pepper. This salad is very tasty warm, or cold.

I like adding grated celeriac into coleslaw.

Nicoise

mayisay

One of my favourites is a courgette salad. Slice thickly, and fry gently with some crushed garlic until softened. Take off the heat, and add chopped mint, sultanas, and some crumbled feta cheese, salt and pepper. This salad is very tasty warm, or cold.

With the courgettes finely sliced I have this
with pasta

Pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, chopped walnuts are also good additions to any salad. Also use chive heads and pansy flowers for colour. Onions heads going to seed can also be sprinkled on.

Absolutely brilliant, thank you all so much for the ideas.

Honestly my mouth is watering. Some delicious-sounding ideas on here.

Thank you for this Dizza25. I was thinking of asking the same question. I found a really good avocado salad recently when I googled.