If you're looking to eat more whole grains, but aren't sure how to prepare them, salads are a good place to start. Cooked grains soak up flavorful dressings without turning to mush, and taste great with crunchy vegetables, sweet fruit and soft chunks of cheese. And they make excellent leftovers, so if you give any of these 10 recipes a try, be sure to make enough for tomorrow's lunch too. More

Man, I love a good vinaigrette. The best ones elevate a simple pile of greens into a salad. So I was pretty jazzed to see Amanda Hesser's recipe for the best French vinaigrette ever at Cup of Jo today. This is vinaigrette French-style, "perfectly peppery, garlic-y, lemon-y." Yes please. More

I spent last week on the coast of Northern California, splitting the time between Marin County north of San Francisco, and Big Sur to the south. We drove north to south in the middle of the week, through golden hills and irrigated rows of green. Suddenly, with fields all around, I sniffed. Had I forgot to wash my hands after last night's garlicky pasta dinner? No — even that wouldn't give off this garlic pungence, this scent of a thousand garlic cloves minced and oily. Welcome to Gilroy, California, the capital of garlic. Here, in honor of Gilroy, for all you garlic-lovers, is a pasta salad with not one, not two, but three whole heads of garlic. More

Today, I made a salad that reinforced something that I've known for a long time: cheese is the ultimate unifier. More

Hearty grain salads are immensely satisfying, and kale salads are a must. But there's nothing quite like the cool, crisp crunch of a great slaw. Here are 10 favorites, from fresh fennel and lemon to cabbage and beet. Bring a side to your next picnic! More

If appearances were any indication, you'd expect lacy fronds of frisée to have a delicately sweet flavor best suited for a salad more pretty than tasty. And you'd be wrong. Nibble a piece of frisée, and you'll be met with one surprisingly bitter green. What do you think of frisée? More

There's nothing wrong with a good hunk of onion in a salad: it's crunchy, and filled with pungent flavor. However, when that strong flavor takes over the dish, not to mention the next few hours of the victim's mouth, that's when one starts to push those crisp onion slices off to the side of the plate. But there's a great way to have your onion and eat it too! More

I make bean salads year-round, but they seem to make a more frequent appearance on the table as the weather warms up. This isn't a surprise; bean salads are easy to prepare, taste great hot or cold, and make a light but filling main course or side. They are also often bland, mealy and terribly boring — but they don't have to be. Here are 5 tips for making tastier, more memorable bean salads. More

I have a serious weakness for any food that ends in the word salad (ham salad, tuna salad, pasta salad), so when I came across this slightly crispy potato salad on Flickr I was all over it! The secret are whole potatoes sliced into thick slabs and then seared slightly to give them a little crunch. More

Mason jars have become ubiquituous across the blogosphere, transporting everything from soup to cupcakes to oatmeal in practical, sensible style. This practicality means they won't fall out of favor any time soon, we predict. Look at the latest in-jar meal we're crazy about: Layered salads, beautiful and bright. More