25 Green Salads to Serve with Any Meal (2024)

The green salad is a timeless element to any meal, equally at home as a fresh brunch side, the main dish for lunch, or a starter for dinner. Our best green salad recipes are flavorful, simple, and sure to please. From Classic Caesar to Lemony Waldorf to elevated takes on Wedge Salad, these are Food & Wine's freshest green salad recipes.

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Mixed Greens with Shallot-Dijon Dressing

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Grace Parisi tosses two pounds of mixed greens with minced shallot, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and Dijon for an easy, 10-minute salad.

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Charred Cabbage Salad with Pecan Dukkah and Chile-Lime Butter

25 Green Salads to Serve with Any Meal (2)

Chef Nick Cobarruvias draws on his Mexican heritage, layering complex flavor combinations into dishes like this crisp-tender cabbage salad. He seasons the charred cabbage with chile-lime butter, made mildly spicy from árbol chiles and bright from lime zest. The pecan dukkah adds earthiness from the cumin and pops of citrus from the coriander, plus a lovely nutty flavor and texture from toasted pecans and sesame seeds.

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Big Italian Salad

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Part green salad, part antipasto salad, this recipe combines lettuce, celery, onion, peperoncini, olives, and cherry tomatoes — all tossed in a dressing made with olive oil, vinegar, and a little mayonnaise.

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Kale Salad with Cranberries, Almonds, and Goat Cheese

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This cool-weather kale salad dresses up the hearty greens with toasted almonds, dried cranberries, goat cheese, and a citrus-Dijon vinaigrette.

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Wedge Salad with Tahini Green Goddess Dressing

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Justin Chapple adorns this incredibly crunchy and refreshing iceberg wedge salad with a bold and thick herb-forward green goddess made with mayo and sour cream. The secret to his spin on the dressing istahini, which adds depth, nuttiness, and a pleasantly bitter edge.

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Pea Shoot and Chive Salad

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Any combination of pea leaves, shoots, and sprouts will work well in this recipe, tossed with a spicy ponzu dressing.

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Peppery Greens Salad with Avocado, Chicken, and Tortilla Croutons

25 Green Salads to Serve with Any Meal (7)

Toss arugula, frisée, chicken, radicchio, avocado, pepitas, and tortilla pieces with a simple peppery dressing for this visually appealing salad.

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Celery Salad with Pine Nuts, Arugula, Feta, and Pita

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Sliced celery gives this arugula and fennel salad an anchoring earthy flavor accented by an herbaceous and lively dressing made from a few common kitchen acids like lemon juice and red wine vinegar.

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Classic Caesar Salad

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This classic Caesar salad is loaded with plenty of garlic, anchovies, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It's also fast and easy to make.

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Arugula-Fennel Salad

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Eugenia Bone, prolific home cook, writer and author ofWell-Preserved, serves this simple green salad with a cheese plate and plenty of rustic bread.

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Greens, Avocado, and Blueberry Salad

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Food scholar and cookbook author Jessica B. Harris keeps specialty salts and vinegars on hand to bring instant interest to salad dressings. Here, a honey-ginger white balsamic is the backbone of a sweet, fragrant dressing that adds a mildly piquant kick to the fresh peppery greens and creamy avocado in this colorful side salad.

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Spring Gem Salad with Soft Herbs and Labneh Toasts

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Chef Nancy Silverton says the first sign of spring is when she puts this salad on the menu at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles. She dresses the asparagus, peas, radishes, and sugar snap peas with a lemon vinaigrette, then offers toasts topped with labneh alongside, turning this ode to spring produce into a light lunch or first course for dinner.

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Seaweed and Greens Salad

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This hearty salad blends sea greens and land greens. Fresh salad greens, carrots, radishes, and cucumber get a boost of salinity and texture from three different types of delicious seaweeds: kelp, dulse, and Irish moss. The trio of mineral-forward sea vegetables is nicely balanced by rice vinegar dressing.

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Mission Fig, Elderberry, and Mixed Greens Salad

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Winemaker Tara Gomez belongs to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. This salad of seasonal fruits, herbs, and flowers balanced with bold leafy greens and a simple, bright lemon dressing, includes traditional Chumash ingredients.

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Charred Broccolini Caesar with Kale and Chickpeas

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Little Gem lettuces, hearty kale, and crisp-tender Broccolini bring three levels of crunch, and provide plenty of leafy nooks and crannies to catch the thick, anchovy-laced dressing.

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Fennel and Apple Salad with Hazelnuts

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Toasty hazelnuts are tucked in among tender lettuce leaves, fragrant fennel, and sweet-tart Granny Smith apple, for a refreshing and crunchy fall salad.

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Spinach Salad with Warm Maple Dressing

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The tender spinach leaves gently soften under the warm dressing, giving them a barely wilted yet still crisp and refreshing texture in this satisfying wintry salad.

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Little Gem Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

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Chef Nancy Silverton's lovely salad, adapted from her Mozza Cookbook, features Little Gem lettuce, a smaller, sweeter variety of romaine. If you can't find it, use hearts of romaine instead.

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Super-Simple Green Salad

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This 10-minute salad is a staple on Nadine Levy Redzepi’s table because it’s fresh, tasty, and completely versatile, with red leaf and romaine lettuce.

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Watercress Salad with Verjus Vinaigrette

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Chef Corey Lee fries almonds and peels grapes for his compelling salad. At home, use roasted marcona almonds and unpeeled green grapes.

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Brussels Sprouts and Arugula Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

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Toss brussels sprouts with arugula, parsley, and a light buttermilk dressing for a quick, easy salad. For a few extra minutes, quick-pickled shallots add color, texture, and tang.

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Oma's Green Mountain Salad

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In this seasonal salad, Chicago chef Sarah Grueneberg takes inspiration from the translation of her last name and the translation of her restaurant name (both mean "green mountain," in German and Italian, respectively). She amps up a zesty buttermilk dressing with charred ramps (scallions would also be delicious), then drizzles the dressing over crisp Little Gem lettuce, celery, and baby turnips.

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Bibb Lettuce Salad with Vinegar-Roasted Beets

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Justin Chapple adds Jamie Malone’s vinegar-roasted beetsto this Bibb lettuce salad with thyme and bay leaf.

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Lemony Waldorf Salad

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For this refreshingly crunchy salad, chef Mark Peel adds romaine lettuce, frisée, and sliced radishes to the classic Waldorf salad mix of apples, celery, and walnuts. In place of the traditional mayonnaise-based dressing, he makes a lemon-walnut oil vinaigrette flavored with cumin.

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Mixed-Greens-and-Herb Salad with Figs and Walnuts

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Using whole leaves adds bursts of flavor to this salad.

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