No Lettuce Required
Bored of your usual rotation of salad recipes? Step away from the lettuce with our collection of the best delicious, healthy, and craving-worthy salads without lettuce that will make you think about salad in a whole new way. Say goodbye to soggy lettuce leaves, and say hello to creative salad recipes that are perfect for enjoying for lunch, as side dishes at dinner, or bringing to potlucks, picnics, and barbecues. We’re not telling you to give up lettuce completely—we’re all about lettuce, too—but when you’re craving something different and healthy, we’ve got you covered with this amazing compilation of delicious, nutritious salads, with not a lettuce leaf in sight.
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Moroccan Beet Salad With Yogurt Dressing
What could be easier or more delicious and nutritious than a salad with sweet and delectable beets drizzled with a homemade creamy yogurt dressing? Moroccan spices and fresh mint leaves add something special to this cooling beet salad that can be enjoyed at any time of year.
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Warm Halloumi, Green Bean, and Potato Salad
Halloumi is a salty, semisoft, deeply savory Greek cheese that takes beautifully to grilling and frying. This quick and easy fried cheese salad recipe with plenty of crunchy, bright vegetables is one of our favorite salads without lettuce. Enjoy it as a satisfying vegetarian lunch anytime or as a hearty first course at dinner.
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Cold Soba Noodle Salad
Sometimes you want to switch gears from hot dishes, especially when the weather warms up. That’s where cold salads come into play. This fantastic, cool and crunchy noodle salad is sure to become a go-to in your cooking repertoire. Perfect for packed lunches and picnics, with its bright and zesty-sweet lime, honey, and ginger dressing, the fresh and crunchy vegetables add brightness and texture to chewy buckwheat noodles.
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Spiralized Village Greek Salad
You may think of Greek salads as including lettuce, but in Greece, the favorite salad recipe is horiatiki or village salad. This naturally gluten-free recipe is a fun twist on village salad because it uses a spiralizer cooking tool (or a julienne peeler) to create long, thin strips of cucumber, instead of chunky slices. The rest of this Greek salad recipe is just like the original, with sliced fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, red onion, Kalamata olives, and salty feta cheese, drizzled with a simple oregano vinaigrette. Opa!
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Creamy Potato Salad
This is no ordinary potato salad, but it’s as easy as all the rest. The secret behind this creamy potato salad recipe is a combination of bolder flavors that invigorate the favorite summertime dish. The mayonnaise-based salad has capers, Dijon mustard, garlic, and fresh tarragon. Once it’s mixed, let the salad chill for two hours, and it’s ready to enjoy.
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Blue Cheese Coleslaw
For a unique side, try blue cheese coleslaw. The recipe creates a flavorful creamy dressing made of blue cheese, garlic, lemon juice, parsley, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix that with a prepared slaw mix and top it with crumbled bacon, and it’s done. This slaw also makes a great topping for burgers, hot dogs, and barbecue pulled pork sandwiches.
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Grilled Corn Salad
Remove the kernels from a grilled cob of corn to make this grilled corn salad that comes together with cherry tomatoes, diced red onion, bell pepper, plenty of fresh parsley, and a delicious creamy mustard vinaigrette and not a lettuce leaf in sight.
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Vegetarian Ceviche Salad
The exciting flavors of a traditional ceviche marinade work just as well for vegetables as they do for seafood, as you’ll experience when you toss together this super amazing and crunchy salad. Fresh mozzarella cheese replaces raw fish in this healthy and colorful salad, which includes marinated onions, hot chile peppers, corn, and heart-healthy avocado.
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Thai Grapefruit Salad
This fresh and lively citrus salad makes a beautiful addition to any summer picnic. The pink grapefruit has a tangy, sparkling, refreshing flavor that combines perfectly with lime juice, brown sugar, and traditional Thai dressing ingredients, for a unique and healthy summer lunch or side dish your family or guests will love.
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Ramen Noodle Coleslaw
This ramen noodle coleslaw recipe requires no cooking—the Chinese noodles are crushed and tossed in raw—so you can avoid the oven when the heat becomes too much. This slaw goes great with everything from burgers to fried chicken, making it a favorite for picnics and cookouts.
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Vanilla Citrus Fruit Salad
You’ll be amazed at how a few simple ingredients bring to the next level a simple, yet flavorful, low-calorie salad of pineapple and citrus fruits. Our vanilla-scented citrus fruit salad is a great side dish for pork and chicken or a refreshing dessert for a summer gathering.
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Asian Coleslaw With Rice Vinegar Dressing
Liven up your usual coleslaw, with this Asian slaw recipe that adds shredded bok choy, bean sprouts, and tangy rice vinegar dressing to the usual coleslaw with cabbage. Try it once, and it’s sure to become a family favorite for all your dinners and cookouts this year.
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Chinese Cucumber Salad
What could be a simpler or more refreshing first course or side dish, than a cooling cucumber salad? Sliced cucumbers are marinated in a spicy-sweet, Asian-inspired dressing in this easy recipe.
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Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
A balanced combination of chickpeas, crisp fresh veggies, feta cheese, and lemon dressing, this Mediterranean chickpea salad is an impressive side dish or the main dish for a light summer meal. It pairs perfectly with kebabs, grilled fish, or homemade falafel.
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Thai Rice Noodle Salad
Thai food lovers will go crazy for this fresh, flavorful Thai rice noodle salad that’s surprisingly quick and easy to make. Fresh summer vegetables, aromatic herbs, and crunchy peanuts are combined with vermicelli rice noodles in a delicious and simple chile-lime vinaigrette.
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Vegan Papaya Salad
This fun and spicy salad without lettuce put a tasty vegan spin on a traditional Thai salad recipe. It’s packed with plenty of flavors, thanks to a garden’s worth of freshly chopped vegetables, including firm green papaya slices, crunchy and salty roasted peanuts, and an awesome savory-sweet dressing.
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Easy Vegetarian Couscous Salad
Couscous salads are always welcome for picnics and buffet tables, and this delicious, vegetarian- and vegan-friendly couscous salad is just about perfect. Bursting with chickpeas, green onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and tossed in light lemon Dijon dressing, this fresh sans-lettuce salad is the perfect side dish or healthy vegetarian lunch.
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Broccoli Slaw With Raisins
Broccoli adds welcome texture and flavor to this crunchy, delicious slaw recipe that’s great for enjoying at any time of year, from potlucks and picnics to holiday dinner celebrations. Shredded broccoli is tossed with optional red onion, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and raisins in a beautifully creamy coleslaw dressing.
