Salad Recipes

Birdsong

Does anyone have any tasty receipes for a pasta salad, my sister is having a party on Sat, and was thinking a big pasta salad would be a good idea as a soaker up along with some chips & dips. She doesn't have big fridge space to store before hand.

superficies

Option 1: Pasta, small brocolli flowers (is that what they're called? florets? whatever...small bits of brocolli), feta cheese and pine nuts. Olive oil. Mix. Yum

Option 2: Pasta, tomatoes, boiled eggs, tuna, mayo. Mix. Double yum

Option 3: Pasta, simple tom sauce (garlic, onion, courgette, red pepper, tinned toms, mix and heat), mix, cool, yum.

Kenny_D

Pasta, Mayo, sweetcorn, kidney beans, bacon pieces and peanuts, pepper to taste. Simple and delicious

Swampy

twirly pasta, buy a cooked chicken and shred it, small cubed chees, sliced peppers, diced scallions, whatever else and some dressing of your choice.

the beer revolu

Does anyone else think that pasta salad is just wrong - like cold , stirred up pasta dinner??

Anyone?:rolleyes:

olaola

I love the carby-satisfying chomp of pasta salad.

Green pesto, fresh basil, pine nuts & grated grana padano.

And edited to add: Make it up in a large zip-lock bag, and serve when needed. You could leave it outside - as it's prob as cold as her fridge is at the moment!

peepeep

Pasta, sweetcorn, shredded chicken, mayo and curry powder. rockin.

Minder

Fusilli pasta with tomato, herbs and garlic breadcrumbs. Cook the pasta, fry breadcrumbs in olive oil until golden and add chopped garlic. Fry some diced fresh tomato. Chop handfuls of fresh summer herbs - basil, oregano, marjoram, parsley, chervil (If you can get them). Add all ingredients together and give it a good mix - season and serve while still warm.

Birdsong

Thanks folks, some great suggestions there - we might even do different ones, because one the pasta is cooked its just adding the main flavour

Kimia

Hi everyone,

So I had a bit of a breakthrough with salads. I'd always thought that salads were horrible rabbit food and I'd never get into them but I made a beautiful tiger prawn salad which changed my mind completely so I'm hoping that others can share their recipes with me!

Here's the Tiger Prawn & Spinach salad, quantities are by taste

Ingredients

200g raw tiger prawns
Coriander
Garlic puree or mushed up garlic paste
Chilli, either fresh or ground
Lemon juice, few tablespoons
Olive oil
Spinach leaves

Method

• Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, coriander and chilli
• Marinade the tiger prawns with it
• Heat a frying pan med-high
• Fry the prawns until nicely browned on each side, about 2-3 mins a side
• Place prawns on spinach
• Pour in the rest of the marinade to 'cook' it, only for about 10 seconds as the pan is hot
• Pour over the prawns & spinach as a hot dressing

Faith

I make a rather lovely crab and avocado salad . It's an extremely rough recipe, but it's hard to go wrong.

Cooked and prepared crab meat, about 100g per person
Lettuce leaves - whichever you like. I prefer a baby leaf salad for this.
Half an avocado per person
Cherry tomatoes, as many as you like.

Dressing:

Mayonnaise
Ketchup (less than the mayo by about 50%)
Worcestershire sauce (about 5 drops per person)
Tabasco sauce - to taste
Salt & pepper
Lemon juice

First mix all the dressing ingredients together. Add your crab and mix.
Prepare lettuce leaves, slice tomatoes and cube the avocado.
Add crab mixture to salad and voila!


Alternatively, leave out the lettuce and tomatoes, and serve on brown bread.

neuro-praxis

Goat's cheese salad

Raspberry jam
Balsamic vinegar
Bacon lardons
Log of goat's cheese
Large bag of mixed baby leaves

Make a dressing by combining raspberry jam with some good quality balsamic vinegar. You can whisk these together and, if you like, warm them up in a pan.

Take a soft goat cheese log with a very soft rind and cut into slices. (If you feel like it, you can warm your goat's cheese gently under the grill.)

Fry some lardons of bacon.

Using most of the dressing, coat a large bag of baby leaves (spinach, rocket etc.) and divide into bowls. Sprinkle with bacon. Top with goat's cheese and drizzle with the last of the dressing.

Pear and stilton salad

Bacon lardons
3 ripe pears , peeled, cored and sliced
140g blue cheese , cut into small cubes, such as Colston Bassett Stilton
100g washed baby spinach

1 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar
1 tsp clear honey
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp olive oil

Fry the lardons in a small pan until crisp.

To make the dressing, reduce the heat in the pan to low and stir in 1 tbsp water, then the vinegar, honey and mustard. Stir well, scraping up any residue on the base of the pan. Stir in the oil, taste and season.

Meanwhile, heat a ridged griddle pan or grill and cook the pears for about 5 mins on each side, until browned. Place in a bowl and mix with the cubes of cheese (this melts the cheese a little, making it nice and squidgy).

Tip the spinach into a serving bowl, and scatter the cheese and pear mixture over. Top with the warm bacon dressing and serve immediately.

arknine

Vietnamese Mango Prawn Salad

Make a Vietnamese dressing of Fish Sauce, Sugar, Rice Wine Vinegar, Seasame Oil, Juice of a Lime, Chilli, Coriander, and Garlic – thrown into a jam jar and shook up (2 parts of fish sauce, 2 parts of lime juice, to 1 part of rice wine vinegar and 1 part of seasame oil – ratios dependent on portions – herbs,chilli and garlic to taste).

Add the dressing to a bowl of Mango, Red and Orange Peppers, cut into long thin strips.

Some Spring onions pan-fried with seasame oil, seasoned and finished with soy sauce.. throw into bowl with mango and peppers.

Same with pak choi, oil, pan-fried and some soy sauce.
Peanuts dry fried on pan – thrown into bowl.

Then marinated prawns (marinade of chilli, olive oil, garlic) pan-fried and add into bowl.

Add some cooked wok noodles.

Toss the salad.

Enjoy.

<Photo of dish on my blog>

Vietnamese Mango Prawn Salad

Kimia

Yum!! Thanks everyone!

Anyone got any nice ideas for beef? I am a real carnivore so I always start my recipes off with the meat..

looking4advice

With all this fine weather that we are having at the moment, I'd like to eat more salads but can't think of any recipes bar the standard lettuce, tomato, pepper etc.

Care to share some recipes?

The Hill Billy

If you could say what salad ingredients you actually like it would help.

tHB

Outkast_IRE

i like chinese dry coleslaw simple to make,
white cabbage shredded small, grated carrot, rice vinegar , spoon of sugar or 2 in the vinegar to take the sting out. Refrigerate for half a hour before eating

Yum

looking4advice

The Hill Billy wrote: »

If you could say what salad ingredients you actually like it would help.

tHB

I like all types eg Caesar salad, couscous salad, hot chicken salads. Everything and anything. Just looking for ideas really.

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a tomato diced
three olives, quartered
four radishes, chopped
feta cheese cubes
few slices of red pepper diced
a pickled gherkin, sliced
salt
pepper
glug of olive oil
two pinches of oregano
some of those crisp fried onion bits
small glug of balsamic vinegar
half a tin of tuna

into a bowl and all mixed up together, served on a bed of peppery rocket mixed with iceberg lettuce

delicious

the tuna can be subbed out for any kind of other meat. left tover roast chicken, ham etc

Pembily

Baby tomaotes
Rocket
Iceberg or other lettuce leaves
Corriander
Grated cucumber
Seeds
Pepper
Spring onions
Dressing (mix of balsamic vinegar, mustard, oil, garlic)
Grated carrot
Beetroot

Toss up and eat

Sometimes I will mix the carrots, onions, tomato and cucumber a couple of hours before as they are wet and the juices mix well!

vibe666

rocket or a mixture of baby leaves
halved cherry tomatoes
thin cucumber batons
spring onion
beetroot batons
sweet red peppers (the posh long ones that look like a giant chilli)
crumbled feta cheese
grilled smoked mackerel flaked over the top with the oil from cooking it drizzled over the leaves

om nom nom

Dizzyblonde

Rocket leaves
Grilled goat's cheese
Pine nuts
Cherry tomatoes
Thinly sliced red onion
A dressing of balsamic vinegar and honey

shrapnel222

chicken liver salad. nyom nyom nyom.

looking4advice

Any other recipes that are non lettuce/leaf based e.g. kind of like one with chicken, bacon lardons, pesto, philadelphia - the kind of ones you would see in Avoca cafe.

looking4advice

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Rocket leaves
Grilled goat's cheese
Pine nuts
Cherry tomatoes
Thinly sliced red onion
A dressing of balsamic vinegar and honey

These are the kind of ones I make already.

j@utis

grate couple of big carrots, add half cup of raisins - washed and drained, one crushed garlic clove and some walnut pieces(optional but I love walnuts so loads of them, please). dress with some olive oil and mayo. it takes very little time to prepare if you use food processor to grate the carrots and all ingredients can be found almost in every kitchen. my partner says he could live on it

emeraldstar

j@utis wrote: »

grate couple of big carrots, add half cup of raisins - washed and drained, one crushed garlic clove and some walnut pieces(optional but I love walnuts so loads of them, please). dress with some olive oil and mayo. it takes very little time to prepare if you use food processor to grate the carrots and all ingredients can be found almost in every kitchen. my partner says he could live on it

Or in an alternative version, swap the raisins for chopped broccoli. (I tend to go for raw as it's easier, but you might prefer it cooked very slightly.) Really good.

neuro-praxis

I love a really good tomato salad. Get lots of different varieties of tomatoes, in all different colours, shapes and sizes.



Chop and add to a large bowl with one crushed clove of garlic, some rock salt, black pepper, a good glug of olive oil and a nice vinegar - red wine or balsamic are my favourite. Stir together and allow the flavours to mingle.



Serve heaped on slices of lightly toasted ciabatta. Mmmm. Sorry for the rubbish photos!

quaalude

This is a really nice, filling, non leaf-based salad, good for lunch.

1 ripe tomato, finely diced
Half a red onion, finely diced
A couple inches cucumber, finely diced
Can chickpeas, drained
1 clove garlic, crushed
Juice 1 lemon
Glug of extra virgin olive oil
Good seasoning of salt and pepper

Mix together all the ingredients in a big bowl.
Serve at room temperature.
Even nicer if left overnight in the fridge!

kylith

I love rice salad

Mix of cooked white, brown, red, and wild rice
Grated carrot
Raisins
Fresh Coriander
Orange juice mixed with a drop of red wine vinegar.

Mix everything together (use the dressing to just moisten everything; you don't want orange and rice soup). Let sit so the raisins can absorb the dressing. Eat.

The dressing is the hardest part to do; you need to be very careful adding the vinegar or you'll overpower the orange. Adding a little at a time and tasting as you go is the best thing to do.