Summer’s here, no time to waste! It’s salad season – better yet, it’s speedy salad season, so you spend less time in the kitchen, and more time soaking up the rays. It means tomatoes and capsicums, basil and mint, cool watermelon and even colder noodles; perhaps some poached chicken or cooked prawns too. Throw them in, toss them around – that’s your summer salad done. Easy. Plus, many of these speedy, summery salads are also perfect to make for Christmas lunch.

Grain salad with dukkah and pickled pomegranate

Heirloom tomatoes and peaches with white bean and hazelnut tarator

Baby vegetable slaw with grapefruit and tarragon

Shaved zucchini, fennel and mint salad with burrata

Fig, pomegranate and burrata with Sherry vinaigrette

Zucchini salad with pecorino, currants, sunflower seeds and lemon

Louis Tikaram’s cucumber and snow pea salad

Mike McEnearney’s grilled prawn, watermelon and tomato salad

Simple tomato and onion salad with vincotto dressing

Chicken noodle salad with turmeric-lime dressing

Mike McEnearney’s fig salad with roast onions, walnuts and radicchio

Mexican-style tuna salad with grapefruit, avocado and fennel

Rice noodle salad with grilled steak, lime and Vietnamese mint

Bert’s zucchini, stracciatella and basil salad

Zucchini, guanciale, mozzarella and fregola salad

Vietnamese-style beef and vermicelli salad

Thai grilled pork salad with green mango

Smoked trout, carrot and quinoa salad with harissa dressing

Rice salad with peas, mint, zucchini, lemon and pine nuts

Poached chicken and millet salad with peas and mint

Chorizo and asparagus salad with chimichurri

Quinoa salad with pomegranate, pumpkin and ashed goat’s cheese

Prawn and soba noodle salad with sesame-ginger dressing

Chicken, roast plum, labne and grain salad

Sichuan chicken salad with chilled noodles and cucumber

Chicken, radish and bean salad with tarragon dressing
