Salad

Think of this as "panzanella verde." There's a lightness here and an herby earthiness that make this the kind of salad you really want on the hottest of summer days.

Warm goat cheese rounds are a lovely contrast to the cool salad. Halved cherries add a fresh, sweet flavor.

This type of chopped salad was once common breakfast fare in Israel.

In this new take on the Caesar, fried eggs top the salad, and fish sauce replaces the usual anchovy fillets.

A satisfying first-course salad with beautifully balanced Asian flavors.

Editor's note: To read more about Raichlen and barbecue, go to our feature The Best Barbecue in the U.S.A. ** This is coleslaw at its simplest and best. No onions. No carrots. No peppers. No mayonnaise. Just cabbage and peppery barbecue sauce. **

Grilled fruit is a newcomer to the traditional Mediterranean table. This dish was inspired by a friend and chef, Nena Ismirnoglou, and then adapted by me for the menu at Pylos, a Greek restaurant in Manhattan's East Village.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text are from Mario Batali's book Italian Grilling. Reprinted with permission by Ecco. All rights reserved. This was one of the first dishes I put on the menu at my restaurant Pó... a long, long time ago. You can vary it by using different greens, such as spicy young watercress, or other cheeses, including sheep's-milk cheese, semi-soft or aged. The beauty of the dish lies in the seemingly incongruous marriage of anchovies and mushrooms: anchovies plus mushrooms equals steak.

Ruggiero couldn't figure out what made the salad dressing at New York's Natori so irresistible and was shocked when she finally got the secret ingredient out of the sushi chef: grated apple. Nor would you ever guess it from a bite of this dressing, since it's not at all sweet or fruity, just perfectly balanced and lip-smackingly delicious. Its slight pulp extends the unctuous richness of avocado and complements the clean assertiveness of watercress.

Food editor Maggie Ruggiero became enamored of a sesame-dressed salad at Donguri, a Japanese home-cooking restaurant in New York City. This is her take on it. Because the sesame seeds are unhulled, they have a richness that flatters the freshness of spring vegetables—here, cool kohlrabi and sweet pea shoots.

That distinctive quality of ume-shiso—the tart-and-salty combination of umeboshi (pickled plums) and green shiso, an exuberantly undefinable fresh herb—really enhances the juicy sweetness and char of grilled shrimp and the faintly radishy crunch of daikon.

Food editor Lillian Chou visited The Conscious Gourmet at their location in Santa Fe for a weeklong retreat in cooking and wellness. With its dose of flaxseed oil, this salad represents an attempt to get more omega-3s into the diet. The hazelnut oil is simply for deliciousness, complementing the toasted nuts and crisp-tender green beans.

Editor's note: The recipe below is adapted from Elizabeth Karmel's Web site, girlsatthegrill.com. This coleslaw originally accompanied Karmel's recipe for North Carolina Style Pulled Pork.

Mangoes take the place of tomatoes, so you don't have to wait until summer to enjoy this much-loved Italian salad.

Salad dressing has derailed at least seven of my diets. Fat-free varieties are either bitter or icky sweet, so I end up skipping salads altogether. The spa version uses thickened nonfat vegetable stock, which uncannily resembles emulsified olive oil, as a base. Soon you'll be buying greens in bulk and jeans in a smaller size.