I eat salad as a main dish a couple times a week. One easy one has bacon, cheese and sliced avocado plus some thin sliced Vidalia onions if I have them, along with the greens, and ranch dressing.

Are you looking for a weekday night home dish or for something for company/party?

Something for company, Sushi. The theme is "salads". So far there are 3 pasta-type salads coming and 1 green salad (no meat).

I don't believe I have ever used a recipe when making a salad!! I just include what I have on hand or what sounds good together. If I have any leftover meat - chicken, sliced steak or baked salmon - I will build around that, adding whatever veggies and greens available. I almost always include avocado and some sort of cheese as well. If no leftover meat, I will sometimes include a hardboiled egg or cooked bacon.

In summer I eat salads as a main dish often, much like Lucille. Taco salad is a big favorite of mine (all the taco fillings, minus the tortilla). And fresh seafood salad with crab and shrimp. I also sometimes make curried chicken salad with rice or Chinese chicken salad.

Glenda, thank you for the recipe. I want to make the pecans just to snack on-they sound very good!

Janey, I do make them as a snack. So good! The restaurant has started selling the pecans. Really easy.

This recipe has become so famous, it's on the daily menu at The Pentagon. Started when the owner served it at a military hangar here, and they liked it so much, the owner gave them the recipe. Thus now served in Washington.

Glenda, I've had that recipe for years and years. Haven't made it in a long time, thanks for reminding me.

Curried Chicken Salad

2 -3 C. cooked chicken, cubed, 1 - 4 oz. can water chestnut, drained and sliced, 1/2 lb. seedless grapes halved, 1 C. celery chopped fine.

Dressing:

1 C. Mayonnaise, 1 tsp. curry powder, 2 tsp. soy sauce, 2 tsp. lemon juice, salt to taste. Combine and toss with above ingredients. Chill before serving.

Chicken Cabbage Salad

4 C. shredded cabbage, 4 green onions, sliced, 1 chicken breast cubed, 1/2 C. sliced almonds, 2 T. sesame seeds, 1 pkg. oriental flavored ramen noodles

Dressing:

2 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. sugar, 4 T. sweetener, 6 T, rice vinegar, seasoning pack from Ramen noodles, 1/2 canola oil

Toast sesame seed and almonds under broiler (watch carefully). Toss Chicken and remaining salad ingredients with dressing just before serving.

These all sound good!

Ha, mine is a pasta salad with pepperoni and cheese in it. Oh well.

Oh, South Beach has nice one with romaine, tomatoes, sliced mushrooms and shrimp with a red wine vinegar/dill/Dijon vinaigrette dressing.

Nothing prettier and more delicious than Insalata Tricolore...garden fresh sliced tomatoes (I prefer Cherokee Purples or a mix of heirlooms) plus sliced avocado and buffalo mozzarella. Top with finely sliced fresh basil and drizzle with evoo. Salt and pepper as desired.

This is one of my favorites. Fairly easy to do, and very refreshing, especially in this hot weather! Rotisserie chicken works just fine, and adds to the "easy" factor.

HAWAIIAN CHICKEN SALAD

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups cooked chicken, cubed (4 large breasts)

2 cups celery, diced

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup chopped pecans, lightly toasted

2 1/2 cups mandarin oranges, drained

2 1/2 cups pineapple tidbits, drained

2 cups green seedless grapes, halved

1 cup red seedless grapes, halved

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, celery, mayonnaise and pecans and mix well.

Gently fold in the mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, green and purple grapes and mango.

Refrigerate for 1 hour to let flavors incorporate a little.

Place on a bed of lettuce and serve or serve as an appetizer on individual lettuce cups.

SERVES: 8-10

Rusty

We like a taco salad as a main course. For taco salad, I toss a torn head of iceberg lettuce and Wishbone Italian Dressing with thinly sliced red onion, 1/2 c drained little red beans, sliced black olives, diced avocado and anything else you like such as corn kernels. I crumble fry a pound of ground beef, drain the fat off, and pour in a jar of salsa, cook it down a bit, and toss it into the salad. Add shredded cheddar, tomatoes, and anything else you like.

This is my favorite fall salad. When the apples are fresh, firm, and sweet.

Grilled chicken

Cubed apple, skin on

Spring mix and/or spinach

Walnuts (I guess if you are from the south you can use pecans)

Blue cheese crumbles

Raisins

Dried cranberries

Pinch of sugar or splenda

Toss and serve with Blue Cheese dressing

Hint- mix some dressing in the cubed apples to keep them from browning.

One of my favorite salads. Just top the salad mix with the toppings:

Spring or salad mix

Sliced apples

Grated fontina cheese

grilled chicken breast

sliced strawberries

chopped bacon

candied pecans

poppyseed dressing (if you buy from a Kroger, I reccomend the orange poppyseed dressing)

I make a chicken salad that has cubed cooked chicken meat, chopped celery, green onions (just the tops), chopped hard boiled egg and sliced toasted almonds as the ingredients. Mix dry ingredients with mayo (I use the mayo sparingly because I don't like gloppy salads) and season to taste with salt and pepper. If you like fruit in your salads, strawberries, mandarins or blueberries could be added as well.

Guests can spoon it out of a bowl or to make it festive, serve on lettuce leaves or other leafy green or scoop into hollowed out tomatoes.

For me, the biggest challenge with salads is coming up with fresh and flavorful ingredients and preparing them in a light and healthful way. So called "grilled chicken" sold in stores or from store roasted chicken is too often bland and too salty. Restaurant recipes tend to over-do the restaurant stereotypical approach using too much salt, making it too sweet (whether with sugar or honey), and often with too much oil. For my taste, too much fruit can also make a salad too sweet as well and so too can using prepared salad dressing.

After I sort through those constraints, there are lots of good choices.

Main course salad for my family is whatever fresh garden veggies I have in the frig but I do plan a salad meal after produce shopping. So its usually some sort of lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, shredded carrots, chopped celery, onions, sweet peppers, mild banana peppers, and beets. I top with fresh uncooked corn that I cut off the cob, cheese, whatever meat I have of leftovers (chicken, ham, steak) hard boiled eggs, and a few berries, and choice of dressing. Generally served with crusty rolls and butter. Last time I fid a salad like this I had some leftover steak fries in the frig. I lightly coated a fry pan with oil and tossed the fries around to heat and crisp up and added a few to each salad. My boys love salad as main meal but it does take longer making 5 of these than cooking a meal at least IMO. LOL.

Lots of great hot weather salads listed here.

I stand by the Baby Blue Salad. It was created by the owner of Homewood Gourmet. Many restaurants serve it but nothing compared to the original. So easy to prepare.

Spinach Salad with warm bacon dressing.

I love Salad Nicoise, and Cobb Salad. Both composed salads. Here's a link to "the" Salad Nicoise

https://littleferrarokitchen.com/julia-childs-salad-nicoise/

There are many good Cobb Salad recipes on the web.

The best salad I've ever had was in this tiny restaurant in Costa Mesa. It was greens, hearts of palm, fried artichoke hearts, ham (I skipped) and a creamy tarragon dressing.

For me, salad texture is the most important part. I need something crunchy so nuts, tortilla strips, sunflower seeds, wonton strips, fried onions, yum.

I just made my favorite shrimp salad for my GFs for lunch and they all enjoyed it. You can surround it with whatever other veggies you want or even things like corn salsa.

1 lb cooked shrimp

1/2 c mayo

1/3 c finely chopped celery

1/4 c finely chopped onion

2 tsp Old Bay seasoning

2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice (juice one half, use other half for garnish)

1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Mix all ingredients and chill at least 1 hour.

Can also be put in a sandwich or wrap.

We love this one at family get togethers. I add Cauliflower with broccoli. Very good.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/14280/fresh-broccoli-salad/

Here is an favorite of ours:

Oriental Cole Slaw

1 Large head of Napa cabbage, chopped fine

5 diced green onion tops

2 pkg. Ramen noodles, chopped fine (do not use the flavoring packet)

1/2 cup sesame seed (toasted 10 minutes in oven, with almonds)

3 oz. slivered almonds (see above)

Mix cabbage and onions and chill. Add seeds and almonds. Mix well.

Dressing: 3/4 cup salad oil, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 Tablespoon soy sauce, 3/4 cup sugar Mix together very well; pour over salad to cover.

I make a blue cheese, beef, and mushroom salad on romaine lettuce.

In a large, flat bowl put in chopped romaine. Cover with sliced raw mushrooms, chopped fresh tomatoes, sliced black olives and slices of roast beef. Crumble bleu cheese over the top, garnish with cracked black pepper. When ready to serve, drizzle with garlic olive oil and toss. Yum.

I've made this salad for years and it is loved by all who eat it!

Mandarin Salad

1/2 cup slivered almonds

3 TBS sugar

In a small pan, heat almonds and sugar until all sugar is melted on to the almonds, keep a close eye on this pan!

1 head of Romaine lettuce-torn into bite size pieces

1 cup celery-chopped

2 whole green onions- chopped

11 oz mandarin oranges-drained

Combine all together with almonds

Dressing

1/2 tsp salt

dash pepper

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 Tbs fresh parsley-chopped

2 Tbs sugar

2 Tbs vinegar

dash tabasco

Shake well and add to salad just before serving.

I like Caprese Salad. I don't have a recipe. I also like Greek Salad, but don't have a recipe for that either. This one by Ina Garten looks good. Greek Salad

At a recent potluck someone brought a broccoli, grape salad that was a huge hit. Recipe was barefootinthekitchen.com Broccoli Salad. It was meatless but you could add bacon I am told.

Oh my! I've been away from my computer until just now and ... wow! Thank you all for your suggestions. They sound wonderful. I'll add all of them to my "repertoire" and let you know which ones I make for the get-together. KT'ers are the best.

Bumblebee Salad

1 cup long grain rice

3 cups corn kernels (I use frozen)

1 19 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 sweet red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

6 green onions, chopped

1/2 cup chopped coriander or more to taste

Dressing:

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tbsp chilli powder

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp salt

pepper to taste

Cook the rice according to package directions. Allow cooked rice to cool slightly. One cup long-grain rice will make 3cups cooked.

In a large serving bowl, combine rice, corn kernels, black beans, red and green peppers green onions and coriander. Mix to combine well.

In a small bowl, whisk together red wine vinegar, lemon juice, oil, garlic, chilli powder, brown sugar, salt and pepper.

Pour dressing over salad and mix all together. Cover and refrigerate until about 1 hour before serving. Best served at room temperature.

This is a complete protein because of beans and rice and is absolutely delicious!