15 Memorial Day Salads to Elevate Your Cookout

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

By
Genevieve Yam
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Genevieve Yam
Senior Editor
After graduating from the International Culinary Center, Genevieve cooked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Per Se. Prior to joining Serious Eats, she was an editor at Epicurious. She grew up between Toronto and Hong Kong and is a graduate of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two cats.
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The Serious Eats Team
The Serious Eats Team
At Serious Eats, we’re a team of self-proclaimed food nerds who are ever-curious about the “why” behind cooking. The staff has worked in restaurants, test kitchens, bakeries, and other notable publications, bringing extensive culinary and editorial expertise to the table.
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Published May 09, 2025
Coleslaw in a white bowl with serving utensils

Serious Eats / Liz Clayman

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. Not sure where to start? Below, you'll find 20 salads that are perfect for a Memorial Day cookout, including classic potato salad, creamy macaroni salad, and crunchy coleslaw.

May 2018

  • Classic Potato Salad

    Classic potato salad in a blue bowl with serving utensils

    Serious Eats / Eric Kleinberg

    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.

  • Easy Fingerling Potato Salad With Creamy Dill Dressing

    Multi-colored fingerling potato salad in a square glass bowl with serving utensil

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    Just as we do in our classic potato salad, we start by 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.

  • The Best Caesar Salad

    A composed caesar salad in a ceramic bowl on a white stone background.

    Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga

    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.

  • Italian-American Pasta Salad

    Italian pasta salad on a white platter with fork

    Serious Eats / Greg Dupree

    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. 

    Continue to 5 of 15 below

  • Tomato-Watermelon Salad

    A dark bowl with tomato-watermelon salad, sprinkled with mint and feta,

    Serious Eats / Photographer: Jen Causey, Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall, Prop Stylist: Josh Hoggle

    Crisp, fresh watermelon and ripe tomatoes are a perfect pairing for an easy, fresh hot weather salad. Here, the two sweet, juicy fruits—yes, tomatoes are a fruit!—are are complemented by fresh mint and creamy, salty feta cheese.

  • Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion

    A white ceramic bowl holding Japanese potato salad.

    Serious Eats / Qi Ai

    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.

  • Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette

    Grilled potato salad in a white bowl with serving utensil

    Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

    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.

  • Classic Coleslaw

    Classic coleslaw in a white bowl with serving utensils

    Serious Eats / Liz Clayman

    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 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 three to one mixture of mayo and apple cider vinegar, plus a bit of sharp Dijon mustard for extra flavor.

    Continue to 9 of 15 below

  • Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad

    Creamy macaroni salad in beige serving bowl

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    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, avoiding the all-too-common one-note texture.

  • Classic Caprese Salad

    An oval ceramic platter holding caprese salad.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

    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?

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

    Mixed greens salad plated with fork on the side

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    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.

  • Watermelon, Feta, and Mint Salad

    Watermelon, feta, and mint salad in a bowl on a colorful tropical print napkin
    Serious Eats / Liz Voltz

    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.

    Continue to 13 of 15 below

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

    Bean salad with radicchio, radish, pickled onion, and Marcona almonds in a ceramic bowl

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    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.

  • Summer Squash Salad With Goat Cheese, Fennel, and Dill

    Salad of thin sliced summer squash and fennel, crumbled goat cheese, and dill in a turquoise serving bowl

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    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.

  • Creamy Cucumber Salad

    Creamy cucumber salad on a bright teal patterned platter with serving utensils

    Serious Eats / Lynn Wolsted

    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.

May 2018

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