Hot Summer/Cold Salmon Salads

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I'm completely addicted to salmon salads right now. Every week I get extra salmon at the farmers market knowing I will cook it for dinner one night and use the leftovers for lunch the next day.

You can bake, grill or poach your salmon. My only recommendation is pulling it from the heat before it's cooked through. I like it a teense bit rare so it stays moist and doesn't dry out. I recommend one of these 4 preparations:

1. Olive Oil Poached Salmon

2. Poached Salmon with Dill-Mustard Sauce

3. Broiled Salmon in Parchment Paper

4. Grilled Salmon with Lemon-Yogurt Herb Sauce

The next trick is to use your leftover veggie for the salad too. During asparagus season, I was making it with leftover asparagus. If I had sugar snap peas, I'd blanch those for 30 seconds and toss those in too. Now that asparagus are long gone from the farmers market, I've moved onto green beans. I cook them using Ina's recipe for String Beans with Shallots. No matter what veggie(s) you choose, you have to have a great dressing. I used my friend Jen's salad dressing recipe from her Simple But Delicious Salad. I usually use a mix of lettuces from the market depending on what looks good: Romaine, Butter, Cherokee, Green Leaf. And last but not least, chives. Toss the lettuce with the dressing and top with a small fillet of salmon, green veggie, minced chive and fresh ground pepper. Perfect lunch in no time.

Now if you want to turn those leftovers into a full dinner....

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The other night I made Broiled Salmon in Parchment Paper, String Beans with Shallots, Mrs. Young's Potatoes and the sauce from Poached Salmon with Dill-Mustard Sauce (great side sauce for salmon and potatoes no matter the preparation). I was half-way to a salmon nicoise salad with leftovers so I boiled some eggs and dug through the fridge. Capers and kalamatas, check. The next night, I threw it all together and had dinner in less than 10 minutes. Serve with some toasted baguette and cambozola cheese (my current obsession) and dessert for a perfect dinner.

Salmon Nicoise Salad

Salmon leftovers

Green bean leftovers

Potato leftovers, tossed with mustard-dill sauce leftovers
Mixed greens (Romaine, Butter, Cherokee, Green Leaf)

Medium to hard-boiled eggs, quartered

Good tomatoes, quartered

Kalamata olives, cut in half

Capers

Salad dressing, using recipe from Simple But Delicious Salad

Freshly ground black pepper