20 Memorial Day Salad Recipes to Balance Out All That Meat

You're going to need something bright and fresh—or at least something cool—to cut through all those smoky meats.

Memorial Day is right around the corner, and that means grilling season is officially here. Your holiday cookout preparations are probably focused on burgers, skewers, and other grilled mains, but don't forget about the side dishes. Though salads might seem unexciting next to a gorgeously seared steak, they serve the vital purpose of rounding out and brightening up what can be an otherwise heavy meal.

We have lots of options to choose from, including updated potato salads, pasta salads, and coleslaws; more vegetable-forward dishes to keep it light; and even a few grilled salads. Keep reading for 20 of our favorite salads that are perfect for a Memorial Day cookout.

Potato Salad

Classic Potato Salad

The best classic potato salad starts with the best potatoes. Dump a bunch of chopped spuds into boiling water, and they'll come out crunchy at the center and mushy on the outside—definitely not what you want from potato salad. Our trick is to start the potatoes in cold water so that they cook evenly. The dressing you use is largely a matter of taste, but we like a balanced mixture of mayo, rice wine vinegar, sugar, mustard, and chopped cornichons.

List Link: Classic Potato Salad

Easy Fingerling Potato Salad With Creamy Dill Dressing

This recipe starts in the same way as our classic potato salad, with cooking the spuds in cold water seasoned with salt and vinegar. We make the dressing with tangy sour cream instead of mayonnaise for extra flavor, and add olive oil, vinegar, onion, and a generous amount of dill. Creamy fingerling potatoes are our favorite choice here, but Yukon Golds will work, too.

List Link: Easy Fingerling Potato Salad With Creamy Dill Dressing

Fingerling Potato Salad With Chorizo, Onion, and Arugula

This potato salad is neither creamy nor vegan. The oil-dressed salad is studded with smoky chorizo, both pickled and sautéed onion, and peppery arugula. For extra flavor, we cook the potatoes in ultra-salty water and add aromatics like bay leaves and oregano to the pot.

List Link: Fingerling Potato Salad With Chorizo, Onion, and Arugula

Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion

Japanese potato salad doesn't look much like its American cousin, but it'll still be a hit at your Memorial Day cookout. The biggest difference is that the potatoes are mashed after boiling and packed with mix-ins; in this case, we use cucumber, carrots, red onion, hard-boiled egg, and scallions. The dressing is pretty similar to what you see on American potato salads—mayo, vinegar, and mustard—but we use Japanese-style Kewpie mayo and powdered hot mustard.

List Link: Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion

Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette

Once you start grilling your potatoes for potato salad, you may never want to go back to your standard recipe. This dairy-free version is made with new potatoes par-cooked on the stove, grilled until crispy, and dressed with a lemony vinaigrette. Grilling the lemons softens their tart flavor and gives the dressing an additional hint of smoke.

List Link: Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette

Creamy Vegan Fingerling Potato Salad

This potato salad manages to be super creamy without requiring a drop of mayonnaise—in fact, it's 100% vegan. Instead of making a standard potato salad dressing with vegan mayo, we use a sweet-tart vinaigrette thickened with starch-rich potato-cooking liquid and mashed Yukon Golds.

List Link: Creamy Vegan Fingerling Potato Salad

Coleslaw

Classic Coleslaw

Simply slicing raw cabbage and tossing it with dressing is a recipe for disaster—not only does the cabbage come out unpleasantly crunchy, it also ends up shedding a ton of water that will turn your coleslaw into soup. The solution is to purge the cabbage (and other vegetables) with salt and sugar after shredding, which softens them, draws out excess water, and concentrates their flavor. After the cabbage has dried, it's ready to dress with a simple 3:1 mixture of mayo and apple cider vinegar, plus a bit of sharp Dijon mustard for extra flavor.

List Link: Classic Coleslaw

Tangy Buttermilk Coleslaw

If you're always ending up with a lot of leftover buttermilk after using just a few ounces for a recipe, this is a handy way to use up the rest. We start this coleslaw just as in the recipe above, thinly slicing the vegetables (a mandoline works, but a food processor is faster) and purging them of excess moisture. The dressing is made with lots of tangy buttermilk, plus mayo, mustard, apple cider vinegar, and sugar.

List Link: Tangy Buttermilk Coleslaw

Pasta Salad

Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad

Too much macaroni salad out there is dressed with little more than mayonnaise, which can be bland and unappealing, even for a mayo lover. This recipe gives the dressing a more complex flavor by mixing the mayo with sour cream, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, and hot sauce. It also adds celery, shallots, and scallions to give the dish plenty of crunch, thereby avoiding the all-too-common one-note texture.

List Link: Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad

Spanish Pasta Salad With Chorizo, Piquillo Peppers, and Pickled Onion

Looking for a more refined alternative to a typical pasta salad? This Spanish-inspired version is sauced with smoky Spanish chorizo, tart pickled yellow onion, and piquillo peppers. We normally like to cook our pasta al dente, but not for pasta salad—the noodles firm up as they cool, so you need to cook them a little longer to compensate.

List Link: Spanish Pasta Salad With Chorizo, Piquillo Peppers, and Pickled Onion

Blistered-Tomato Pasta Salad With Basil

It's common to make summertime pasta salads with raw tomatoes and basil, and while we love that flavor combination, we take issue with the technique—pasta and raw vegetables just don't work well together. Instead, we cook cherry tomatoes until they burst and use their juices to make a simple sauce, while keeping the basil raw to maintain its fresh, spicy flavor. This salad can be made a day in advance, but make sure not to add the basil until right before serving.

List Link: Blistered-Tomato Pasta Salad With Basil

Other Salads

Roman-Inspired Mixed-Green Salad (Misticanza alla Romana)

Though this salad is about as simple and modest as they come—mixed greens, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt—it'll stand out if you use only the freshest leafy greens and herbs that you can find at the market. Look especially for greens that are in season, which, right now, means tender leaves like arugula, watercress, and pea shoots. It doesn't sound like much, but there's no better way to cut through all the heavy grilled mains and sides at a cookout.

List Link: Roman-Inspired Mixed-Green Salad (Misticanza alla Romana)

Classic Caprese Salad

It's just not summer without Caprese salad, and a good one is all about the quality of the ingredients. Though fresh tomatoes won't hit their peak till August and September, if you're really craving a Caprese now, look for smaller cherry and grape tomatoes, which tend to be far higher in quality than full-size tomatoes during the off season. This is also the time to hunt down the best fresh mozzarella available to you, reach for the top-shelf olive oil, and break out the fancy coarse sea salt. The result will be so good, you wouldn't dream of letting a bottle of balsamic vinegar near it—right?

List Link: Classic Caprese Salad

Catalonian-Inspired Grilled Vegetable Salad (Xató)

This salad makes double use of your fire: We grill chiles, tomato, almonds, hazelnuts, and bread and blend them up to make a vinegary romesco-like sauce, then serve that sauce on grilled endive and spring onions. Anchovies are a traditional xató ingredient, but since they can be polarizing, we recommend setting some out on the side and letting others decide whether or not to add them.

List Link: Catalonian-Inspired Grilled Vegetable Salad (Xató)

Bean Salad With Radicchio, Radish, Pickled Onions, and Marcona Almonds

Like all salads, bean salads are best when they're packed with contrasting textures and flavors. Here, that means crunchy radishes and Marcona almonds, bitter radicchio, and acidic pickled red onion, all dressed with a simple vinaigrette. We used orca beans in this version of the dish, but feel free to use turtle beans, navy beans, black-eyed peas, or whatever else you happen to have in your pantry.

List Link: Bean Salad With Radicchio, Radish, Pickled Onions, and Marcona Almonds

Summer Squash Salad With Goat Cheese, Fennel, and Dill

This easy salad showcases young, tender summer squash, which we slice thinly on a mandoline and toss with fennel, dill, olive oil, lemon juice, and goat cheese. Toss everything together thoroughly except the cheese, and be gentle once it goes in—you want the cheese to stay in clumps, rather than dissolving in a milky coating.

List Link: Summer Squash Salad With Goat Cheese, Fennel, and Dill

Watermelon, Feta, and Mint Salad

Watermelon and feta salads became so trendy in the aughts that they eventually suffered a backlash. The fervor over them may have died down, but the combination of sweet fruit and salty cheese is as delicious as ever. Beyond those two ingredients, we like to add chopped mint leaves, olive oil, and a little minced lemon zest. As with our squash salad, we add the cheese last, and crumble it over the top, so it doesn't end up coating the watermelon and dominating the whole dish.

List Link: Watermelon, Feta, and Mint Salad

Italian-American Pasta Salad

For a stellar pasta salad, skip the vinaigrette and opt for punchy, briny ingredients like capers and olives. Using concave pasta shapes like shells or orecchiette allows each bite to be filled with vegetables, cheese, and cured meat for maximum flavor and texture. 

List Link: Italian-American Pasta Salad

Creamy Cucumber Salad

In this simple salad, we salt and drain the cucumbers to get rid of excess moisture without sacrificing crunch. Whisking a small amount of water into a mixture of tahini and lemon juice helps create a smooth sauce, while the brightness of fresh dill balances the nutty richness of tahini.

List Link: Creamy Cucumber Salad

The Best Caesar Salad

What's more of a crowd pleaser than a classic Caesar salad? In addition to crisp romaine lettuce and crunchy croutons, you can add a little or a lot of anchovies to the dressing to suit your tastes. An emulsified dressing evenly coats the lettuce for better flavor in each bite.

List Link: The Best Caesar Salad