There’s by no means a greater time of yr than *proper now* to simplify your meals. (And life, for that matter!) The hotter season sees us absorbing lengthy, late-into-the-evening al fresco dinners, full with recent and vibrant mains and summer season facet dishes that encourage. With the climate ripe for out of doors eating, having an arsenal of scrumptious and easy-to-prep facet dishes is the simplest strategy to elevate any meal. From refreshing dips to tangy slaws and fruit-forward salads, the probabilities are infinite. We’re right here to information you thru a number of scrumptious summer season facet dishes positive to please any crowd.
20 Summer time Aspect Dishes Your Company Will Devour
Whether or not you’re planning a seashore picnic, yard barbecue, or an off-the-cuff get-together with associates on the patio, these summer season facet dishes are excellent irrespective of the event. Every recipe makes essentially the most of all of the recent, seasonal components at your fingertips. And what’s extra, they rejoice the essence of summer season—lending a burst of colour and crisp taste to your desk. Along with your grocery record on the prepared, let’s dive into all the very best summer season facet dishes to accompany your summer season feasts.
Charred Candy Potatoes with Dates
Candy potatoes are at all times the form of facet that has everybody going again for seconds. Roasted ‘til caramelized and topped with sticky dates, recent herbs, and a punchy tahini drizzle, these charred spuds are a flavor-packed improve to the fan-favorite ingredient.
Charred Cabbage With Cashew Cream
This charred cabbage is smoky, creamy, and simply the correct amount of spicy—mainly, the facet dish that steals the present. With crispy edges, garlicky cashew cream, and a zippy hit of lime, it’s something however your common cabbage.
Broccoli Caesar Salad
This salad earns its spot as among the finest summer season facet dishes with its crunchy roasted broccoli and shaved parmesan that carry daring taste and texture to each chew. Tossed in a creamy, home made Caesar dressing with simply the fitting tang, it’s a recent and sudden twist on a basic.
Lemony Pasta Salad
Because of its shiny mixture of lemon juice, recent herbs, and crunchy cucumbers that hold issues mild and refreshing, it is a hard-to-beat summer season facet. Tossed with al dente pasta, it’s the right stability of zesty and satisfying for warm-weather gatherings.
Mexican Chopped Salad with Honey-Shallot Dressing
This salad is a vibrant, flavor-packed facet that pairs completely with any summer season unfold. Its crisp veggies and tangy-sweet dressing make it refreshing, satisfying, and endlessly crowd-pleasing.
Spicy Watermelon Feta Salad
When summer season rolls round, I’m all about dishes that stability candy, savory, and spicy flavors. Making a recipe that hits this trifecta is difficult, however this watermelon feta salad delivers. The feta’s wealthy, salty chew contrasts with the candy, juicy watermelon. And the jalapeño’s punchy spice is all I would like to substantiate: that is the official facet dish of the summer season.
Kale Pea & Ricotta Unfold
I’ve by no means met an expansion I didn’t love—and proceeded to dive into, crudité-first. This unfold will not be solely full of recent summer season taste (assume: peas, garlic, lemon juice, and just a little warmth from the pink pepper flakes), but it surely’s additionally a breeze to whip up. Pull out your meals processor and also you’re already midway there.
Bhutta Road Corn Guacamole
It’s an unstated rule: guacamole is a should on any summer season desk. And although folks wish to hold theirs easy, I’m right here for this Indian-inspired spin. Corn (sliced freshly off the cob) is a summertime basic. When combined with a vibrant medley of avocados, jalapeño, cilantro, and sudden spices, you’ve a summer season facet that’s proper at residence alongside your favourite tacos, protein of alternative, or with as many tortilla chips as you possibly can handle.
Snap Pea Salad
When the temps attain into the triple digits, the oven is off and we want sides that ship all of the recent taste. This snap pea salad satisfies with an addictively crunchy texture. The goat cheese and feta, plus the creamy white beans, hold issues fascinating and make this salad extra satiating than your typical summer season go-to.
Crispy Halloumi Salad
Once you need a summer season facet that leans nearer to the satisfying finish of the spectrum, this torn halloumi variation is your go-to. It’s comprised of a mix of straightforward components that complement and distinction one another to create a very addictive dish. And I like how, whenever you tear the halloumi, it boasts all these lovely, craggily nooks and crispy bits that lend loads of satisfying texture.
Tomato Salad
My relationship with tomato salads: the less complicated, the higher. Summer time is peak tomato season (I’d argue it’s best to by no means purchase tomatoes exterior of June via September), so after all, you need their vibrancy to shine. With simply six components, this tomato salad follows my guidelines to perfection—and reaps the scrumptious advantages in consequence.
Loaded Candy Potato Fries
Whereas candy potato fries could not appear to be an apparent home made summer season facet dish, they could be one in all my favorites on this record. Why? 1) Good day, French fries. 2) Counting salt, this recipe requires simply 5 components. So whenever you’re in a pinch and wish to serve one thing statement-making, these candy potato fries are at all times your reply.
Easy Potato Salad with Smoked Chili Aioli
It’s not summer season and not using a potato salad. And whereas potato salads of yore may need seemed extra like a gloppy mess than a scrumptious summer season facet dish, this recipe understood the project. Yukon gold potatoes roasted in olive oil get tossed with soft-boiled eggs and a smoky-spicy aioli to carry all of it collectively. This recipe is your signal to step away from the sub-par grocery potato salad.
Avocado Caprese Salad
I’m right here for the development of deeming any salad that entails tomatoes and mozzarella a caprese—and this avocado spin is my newfound fave. I like how the avocado introduces a creamy texture and wealthy, buttery chew to the salad’s recent elements. The result’s so satisfying, and I’m obsessive about all the colours this salad packs.
Easy Inexperienced Salad
Positive, you most likely don’t want a recipe for a inexperienced salad. However—an herby, crunchy, inexperienced salad tossed with the very best shallot French dressing of your life? For that, you want Camille’s secrets and techniques. I like the number of greens this salad packs, and the combined herbs add a lot recent taste.
Fig & Burrata Salad
Let this be a PSA to begin including fruit to your salads, stat. Figs, when halved lengthwise, show a fantastically ornate cross-section that yields loads of visible curiosity. By way of taste, they add a fruity component—a mixture between strawberries and dates—to the combo, and their jam-like high quality performs up the creamy burrata to perfection.
Strawberry Burrata Caprese Salad
To reiterate: fruit belongs in your summer season salads. When strawberries are at their freshest peak-summer, this salad is a must-make. You’ll macerate the strawberries, drawing out their pure flavors and concentrating their fruity chew. Paired with freshly torn basil and burrata (bless), this salad is summer season personified.
Sesame Salad
Once you’re conserving your salad easy, it’s all in regards to the dressing. Working example, this summery inexperienced salad with a ginger-packed tahini French dressing. And whereas the salad itself solely requires 4 components—child greens, freshly grated parmesan, roasted and salted pistachios, and furikake—it layers in a lot taste and texture that’s positive to maintain all of your visitors happy.
Herbaceous Fennel Slaw
Each summer season gathering wants a fast and simple slaw. Though pulling out the coleslaw combine and mixing a fast dressing works in a pinch, this fennel salad is simply as quick—and may even name for fewer components.
Bitter Greens, Citrus, and Prosciutto Salad
Can we—proper now—all agree that bitter flavors deserve a spot in our every day diets? Bitter components make the right basis for creamy additions. Some examples: espresso with cream, lemon with butter, and arugula with olive oil. As Camille notes on this recipe, it’s all within the stability. And stability, this salad is ideal. I’m obsessive about the spectrum of hues, flavors, and textures this salad takes on. It’s salty (prosciutto), it’s crunchy (pistachios), and it’s among the finest summer season facet dishes you’ll make this yr.
This publish was final up to date on July 12, 2025 to incorporate new insights.
