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Summer is upon us, and that means it’s grill out season! Whether you’re the one hosting or you’ve been invited over to friend’s house for a good old fashioned BBQ, it’s always good to have a few tried and true salad recipes up your sleeve! We’ve got the ultimate list of unique, crowd-pleasing salads!

Dirty Martini Macaroni Salad

Whether you love a good martini or you just love olives, we’ve got a dish for you today that will check all the boxes for you and kickstart your pasta salad game. We say it all the time, but we’re always trying out different versions of a classic pasta salad; the classic version is great, but why not switch things up and try something a bit different?? For instance, we’re building off of the traditional, mayo-based pasta salad, but we used ditalini pasta instead of macaroni and added a whole lot of olives (plus olive juice for extra flavor) to make this a dirty martini pasta salad. Get the recipe here!

Mexican Street Corn Pasta Salad

Even if you’ve never been to Mexico, hopefully you’ve heard of or tried Mexican street corn. Bought fresh and hot from street carts, this dish is traditionally corn on the cob that’s been charred to perfection, coated in Mexican crema and then topped off with cotija cheese crumbles and cilantro. While we love any iteration of this, turning Mexican street corn into a more filling side dish (or main course, if that’s what you’re feeling) is super easy when you introduce pasta in the mix. Here’s our take on Mexican street corn pasta salad!

Greek Tzatziki Chicken Salad

If you like Greek salad or anything smothered in creamy tzatziki, you’ll love this dish, as it’s essentially a tzatziki-smothered Greek salad, with lots of chicken to boot. First, make your tzatziki by whisking together Greek yogurt and a little mayo (to balance out the tang), along with lemon juice, fresh dill, garlic, and oregano. This sauce is ridiculously refreshing and can be made in a matter of minutes, so don’t feel like you only have to use it in this salad recipe, you can use it whenever! Then, that dressing gets poured over a big bowl of chicken, red onion, cucumber, red and yellow bell peppers, kalamata olives and feta. Goodness, this stuff is good! Get the recipe here!

Thai Peanut Chicken Salad

We use red and green cabbage as the base of the salad, which gives a much sturdier crunch than lettuce. That’s tossed with red, green, and yellow bell peppers, and some red onion, carrots, and cilantro. (See? We told you it was vibrant.) The dressing is a slightly sweet peanut-based one, backed by a little tang from lime juice, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. Get the recipe here!

Hawaiian Macaroni Salad

There are still elements of the version we all know and love, but incorporated several new ingredients that take this classic side dish to a whole new level. First up, you’re going to give your cooked noodles a little apple cider vinegar soak; it smells…assertive at first, but this adds a little zing to the noodles and sets the base for the dish, ensuring it’s the flavor-filled and delicious. Then it’s just a matter of tossing in the chunks of sweet pineapple, bites of ham, fresh carrots and green onion. Get the recipe here!