5 Salads to Take to a Barbecue

Fire up the BBQ and celebrate Bastille Day with your perfect salad side

Happy 14th July! Today is Bastille Day, or Fête Nationale here in France and, while they are the not the same, I can’t help thinking of the 4th July. Maybe that’s because the US really know how to celebrate their independence? As Alison Roman said in her recent newsletter, there’s no beating about the bush, you are screwed if your birthday falls over the 4th of July weekend. Here, 10 days later, from what I can see, it’s not a particularly big deal. In fact, everyone has the day off and is chilling out, and you get fireworks on your birthday which is a lovely bonus.

Yes, there’s a big military parade down the Champs-Élysées and the president stands there all puffed up and important, but that’s as far as the ‘celebrations’ go. This parade honestly strikes me as deeply ironic considering today marks the anniversary of when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison - in defiance of the army and the head of state. But oh well. Who am I to judge? I love a bit of pomp and ceremony after all. But really, they should organise a march of the people all singing ‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ from Les Misérables instead. It would fit the theme much better.

Summertime national holidays make me think of tea parties out in the streets (but that’s because I’m British). Today though, all I crave is a barbecue, again probably because the 4th July keeps popping into my head. Tonight, I’ll go and watch the fireworks over the river Garonne, and in the meantime, I will fantasise about that barbecue. We currently don’t have one, so salad has been my fall-back. I’ve become quite practised at them I must say, so I was wondering what would be my favourite salad side to accompany a plate of barbecued chicken or steak. I narrowed it down to these five, so you, dear reader, will have to help me choose.

Goat’s Cheese and Coriander Potato Salad

This isn’t your normal potato salad. I came up with it during a particularly lazy phase and it is, essentially, ‘buy the ingredients then put them on a plate’. And I couldn’t believe how delicious it was. Really, a salad this easy shouldn’t be so tasty.

Of course, it does require cooking some new potatoes, but if you have a microwave, then this salad gives you permission to be as passive as possible.

So, what’s involved? There are the new potatoes, lightly roasted until the skins are crisp, crumbled creamy goat’s cheese, two variations of tomato - one cherry, one sundried straight from its oil in the jar - a few slices of chilli and spring onion for pep, finally some lemon zest, coriander and olive oil. The laziest potato salad you ever did see.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 75 g / 2.65 oz new potatoes

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more to serve

• 6 cherry tomatoes

• A log of soft goat's cheese

• 3 sundried tomatoes

• 1 spring onion

• Zest of ½ lemon

• 1 red chilli, seeds removed or not, as you wish

• ¼ cup coriander leaves (or a handful)

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F. Wash the potatoes and chop the larger ones in half. Pop them into a microwavable bowl and blast them in the microwave on high for 2 minutes (if you don't have a microwave, boil them in salted water for 5 minutes until a knife can cut through them without resistance). Once they are hot and steaming, tip them onto a baking tray and toss with olive oil and salt. Roast for 15-20 minutes until they are golden and crispy.

• Meanwhile, prep the other salad ingredients. Chop the cherry tomatoes in half and season with salt. Halve the sundried tomatoes, and thinly slice the spring onion and a few slices of chilli (not too much if you prefer a milder salad!).

• Once the potatoes are crispy, arrange everything on your plate. Start with the potatoes and tomatoes, and top with the sun-dried tomatoes. Break off crumbling pieces of goat’s cheese and arrange as much or as little as you wish on top. Sprinkle with spring onion and chilli slivers, a small handful of coriander leaves and enough lemon zest to cover. Drizzle with olive oil and a little salt and pepper.

Halloumi and Blistered Tomato Panzanella

Panzanella is the perfect salad to rid yourself of lingering salad leftovers. While that could make it sound like a compost heap, let me assure you it is anything but! It is an Italian speciality, a way to use up that old ciabatta or focaccia, or in my case, baguette, by soaking it in red wine vinegar and good extra virgin olive oil until squidgy and flavourful.

Dressed in a punchy vinaigrette, strewn with herbs and halloumi and those juicy blistered tomatoes, you could serve this bunch of leftovers to guests and they wouldn't have a clue.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Servings: 3

Author: Adapted from Tara O’Brady’s recipe

Ingredients

For the dressing

• 75 ml / ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• ½ lemon, zested, and ½ of its juice

• 1 garlic clove

• A small handful herbs - I used basil and chives

• 1 small shallot

For the salad

• 200 g / 7 oz crusty bread, day-old or stale

• A big slug of extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1 block of halloumi

• 3 small cooked beetroots

• ½ ripe avocado

• 2 full vines of mixed cherry tomatoes

• A handful of salad leaves - mixed green and purple

• Some small basil leaves for garnish

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• To make the dressing, pour the extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar into a jug, along with the lemon zest and juice. Blend it with a hand blender until emulsified. Crush the garlic, finely chop the herbs and the shallot and add it all to the jug. Season with a little salt. Blend everything together until the dressing is lightly green.

• Rip the baguette into 1 to 1½-inch sized chunks and toss them in a big bowl and cover with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the 1 tbsp red wine vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and toss everything together to soften the bread.

• Slice the halloumi. Chop the beetroots and avocado into bite-sized pieces, and rinse the cherry tomatoes and salad leaves.

• Heat a non-stick frying pan over high heat. When hot, add the halloumi slices. Fry until speckled gold, around 2-3 minutes, then flip and repeat on the other side. Remove the halloumi from the frying pan and onto a plate to cool.

• Place the frying pan back over the heat. Add a splash of olive oil and throw in the tomatoes. They will start sizzling immediately. Sprinkle with salt and sauté in the oil until they are blistered and the skins are bursting. Remove from the heat.

• Rip the halloumi slices into chunks. In a salad bowl, toss together the soaked bread, the halloumi, beetroot, avocado, blistered cherry tomatoes and most of the salad leaves. Dress with most of the dressing – you probably won't need it all – and toss everything together again. Add the remaining salad leaves and basil leaves to garnish. Leave to sit for 5 minutes before serving so the bread can soak up the vinaigrette.

BLT Salad with Garlic Crisps and Pickled Red Onions

Gaylord and I love a BLT sandwich. That winning combination of bacon, lettuce and tomato is one to celebrate, although we do remodel it a bit, adding some garlic to the mayo, some maple syrup to the bacon.

Here I’ve gone and remodelled it again, this time as a salad full of textures - crispy bacon and garlic slivers, soft juicy tomato wedges, and little punchy slices of pickled onion. It is colourful and messy and bit flamboyant, as all good BLTs should be.

Leftover dressing can be kept in a jar in the fridge for a week.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 2

Author: Adapted from Phyllis Grant’s recipe

Ingredients

For the salad

• 1 tbsp pickled red onion slices

• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled

• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 2 beef tomatoes - 1 yellow, 1 red

• 6 big leaves from a head of lettuce

• 3 large basil leaves

• 6 slices of streaky bacon

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

• 1 spring onion, ideally with a large bulb

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar

• ½ tbsp maple syrup

• ½ tsp Dijon mustard

Instructions

• If you haven’t already, make some quick pickled red onions, they’ll only take a few minutes to prepare and can soak as you make the salad.

• Finely slice the garlic. Pour the olive oil into a frying pan, add the garlic slices and set the pan over medium-low heat to slowly warm up and fry the garlic until crisp, around 5 minutes. Keep your eye on it as you prepare the rest of the salad. You don’t want the garlic to burn.

• Chop the tomatoes into slim wedges and rip the large lettuce leaves into thirds - just bigger than bite-sized. Rip the basil leaves into pieces. Combine it all in a salad bowl, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt.

• The garlic should be crisping nicely by now, so carefully drain off the garlicky oil into a measuring jug. Tip the crispy garlic slices onto some kitchen paper to drain.

• Place the pan back on the heat, and increase the heat to medium-high. Add the bacon slices and cook until crisp on both sides.

• Meanwhile, make the dressing. Chop off the spring onion stalk and reserve for another use. Cut the bulb in half, then using a fine grater, grate half of it until you have around 1 tsp. Add the 1 tsp grated spring onion to the garlic oil.

• Add the lemon juice, vinegar, maple syrup and Dijon mustard to the spring onion and oil. Season with some salt then whisk to combine.

• The bacon will be crispy by now so remove it from the pan with tongs and drain on kitchen paper. Once cool, chop into quarters.

• The tomatoes in the salad bowl will have produced a lot of juice after being salted so drain it, mostly down the sink but pour some into your dressing because it is lovely and sweet.

• Add the bacon and garlic crisps to the salad, along with the slices of pickled red onion. Toss it all in the dressing and serve immediately.

Slow Roasted Salmon Caesar Salad

Caesar salad is an outdated classic, which we all secretly love, especially those croutons. Here though, the caesar salad is a little bit lighter, a little bit fresher. Substitute any chicken for slow-roasted salmon, and add avocado, radish and fennel, full of creamy, sharp and sweet flavours to support that indulgent dressing.

Roast the salmon on a bed of herbs - these can be anything that you have in your fridge (this is Raid the Fridge Fridays after all). The flavour is only subtle after roasting, so if you don’t have any herbs lying around, don’t worry, trade them for slices of citrus instead.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 4

Author: Adapted from Abel & Cole’s recipe

Ingredients

For the salmon

• 1 side of salmon

• A couple of handfuls of fresh herbs

• Olive oil

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the Caesar salad

• 2 little gem or Cos lettuces, leaves separated and rinsed

• ½ cucumber, sliced into half moons

• A handful of radishes, a few left whole or halved, the rest sliced into rounds

• ¼ fennel bulb, finely sliced and reserved fennel fronds

• 1 avocado, sliced

• Day-old baguette or bread, ripped into chunks and tossed in olive oil and salt (optional)

• A chunk of good parmesan (optional)

For the Caesar dressing

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

• A pinch of salt

• 50ml / ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp warm water

• 2 anchovies

• ½ small clove of garlic

• ¼ lemon, juice and zest

• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 120°C/100°C fan/250°F. Layer the herbs on a baking tray (one with sides as there will be some juice from the salmon that you don’t want to spill all over your oven). I used thyme, coriander and parsley.

• Lay the salmon on a chopping board and run your hand over it to check for pin bones. Mine was already boned (thank you Lidl), so luckily I didn’t have to get my tweezers from the bathroom. If you find bones, simply pull them out at the angle they are embedded in the salmon (ideally using kitchen tweezers!). Season generously with salt and pepper on both sides then lay it on the bed of herbs. Drizzle with olive oil, then slide the tray into the oven to cook for 30 mins.

• Check the salmon after 25 mins - if the thickest part is flaking into chunks, it’s ready. If not, leave it for another 5 minutes or so.

• While the salmon cools, make the dressing. Put the yolk, Dijon mustard and salt in a bowl, then slowly trickle in a stream of oil as you whisk. Keep the bowl stable on a tea towel as it has a habit to rock around. Don’t add the oil too quickly or it will split. Once all the oil is added, loosen the mayo with the tablespoon of warm water.

• Puree the anchovies with the edge of your knife and crush the garlic. Add them, the lemon zest and juice and the Worcestershire sauce to the mayo, and season with a little more salt.

• If adding croutons, fry the oily stale bread until crisp and golden.

• Arrange the lettuce, cucumber, radish, avocado and fennel on the plates and top with the croutons and shavings of parmesan if using, and big flaky chunks of roasted salmon. Garnish with fennel fronds. Drizzle the dressing over everything and dig in.

Watermelon and Feta Salad

So fresh and so simple! I first trialled this recipe for my birthday a couple of years ago. My birthday is in January, so a watermelon salad seems a bit incongruous. This birthday was in New Zealand though, so it was technically my first-ever summer birthday and celebrate I did with watermelon kebabs, barbecued spatchcocked chickens, and then red wine down the front of my white jeans.

Those watermelon kebabs were a hit, so I turned them into a salad - the crisp sweetness of the watermelon complemented by the creamy feta cheese, salty and spicy from the marinade. The magic of heat transforms the watermelon to become almost meaty, the freshness muted to a softer, more savoury flavour.

Substitute the garlic powder for crushed garlic if you wish, and feel free to omit the chilli.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Servings: 2 generously

Author: Adapted from Nadiya Hussain’s recipe

Ingredients

• 200 g / 7 oz watermelon without rind and chopped into cubes

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for cooking

• ½ tsp chilli flakes

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• ½ tsp dried rosemary or herbes de Provence

• 125 g / 4.5 oz feta cut into cubes

• A couple of heaped handfuls of salad leaves - large lettuce leaves or a bag of salad

• ¼-½ lemon

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• Tip the cubed watermelon into a mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, chilli flakes, garlic powder, dried rosemary, and some salt and pepper and mix to combine.

• Heat another splash of oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Once hot, add the marinated watermelon. Its juices will sizzle on impact. Toss it all in the hot pan and leave to warm through until juicy and meaty.

• Meanwhile, mix the feta cubes in the remaining marinade in the mixing bowl.

• Once the watermelon has been cooking for around 5 minutes, tip it into the bowl with the feta to cool slightly.

• Put the salad leaves in a salad bowl and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, then season a little with salt and pepper.

• Add the watermelon and feta to the salad along with all the juice and marinade, toss gently to combine and serve, maybe drizzling with an extra squeeze of lemon juice first.