Salads

Cucumbers with Red Onion and Sesame

If you want to switch it up, this cucumber salad is another great pairing for a Really Nice Fish—it’s bright, crunchy, a little nutty, and a lovely low-lift side dish.

Iceberg Salad with Onions, Capers, and Pecorino

This salad goes with everything, and is exactly how I like it (acidic, herby, and mostly iceberg lettuce).

Pasta Salad with Zucchini, Sizzled Scallion, and Parmesan

The capers and lemon give it the bright brilliant tanginess that pasta salad craves, but what truly makes this one special is the mix of textures.

Spicy Chicken Salad with Toasted Fennel and Celery

This is one of my favorite lunches, and a great way to use up leftover chicken.

Highly Seasoned Cucumber Salad

If you like pickles, you'll love this salad, which is almost acidic enough to count as a pickle.

Secret Ingredient Pasta Salad

Speaking of summer barbecues, you should be bringing this pasta salad that magically only gets better the longer it sits.

Apples with Honey and Crushed Walnuts

It’s meant to be more acidic than sweet, but adjust with vinegar and honey as needed to suit your preference. A note: Nearly everyone who ate this salad said it was their favorite part of the whole meal, which bruised my matzo ball ego, but I thought you should know.

Chicken and Escarole Salad With Anchovy Croutons

Think of this salad as an umami-charged version of a classic Caesar. The central difference is that the egg yolk, which is typically emulsified into a creamy dressing, is plopped directly onto the lettuces, leaving you to break it and let it mingle with the salty, garlicky, lemony dressing.

New Shrimp Louie (Poached Shrimp Salad)

In this spirit of classics like shrimp Louie or niçoise salad, this is a fairly basic, highly customizable salad-for-dinner deal that can mostly be cooked in the same pot of boiling water.

Lemony White Beans With Anchovy and Parmesan

These white beans could potentially be a whole meal, but they are also great alongside another protein since they pull double duty as both starch and salad.

Crushed Baby Potatoes With Sardines, Celery, and Dill

Boiled potatoes are great to keep on hand for out-of-hand snacking and as a quick addition to things like a skillet full of chicken fat or a midday lunch salad, but also excellent as a foil for rich, fatty, tinned fish.