TASTE: Make more of salads by adding some cooked ingredients, or some cheese, and you won't need anything more for dinner

EVERYONE LIKES FEELING light and lean in the summer months. Or at least trying to. Long evenings and sunny days can curb appetites for the sweet and stodgy and have us grabbing handfuls of leaves to indulge in salads.

But how to get a salad over the hump of being something served as a side dish to have with dinner, to becoming full blown dinner-dinner? Yes, that’s right. Just a big salad and nothing else.

I know in my house it can be a tricky one to sell, so salads usually have to contain a bit of protein to make them feel like a proper meal. Both the carrot, orange and feta salad, and the salmon and beetroot are an assembly of ingredients – some roasted, some cooked, some cold – with leaves and dressing.

The work involved is reasonably minimal, and I am always a fan of taking a cheap vegetable, putting a bit of thought and care into making it into something really tasty, so that it becomes the star of the show.

The potato salad kind of won us over as I love just boiling spuds and serving them with a knob of butter, lots of snipped chives, Maldon sea salt and loads of black pepper. To make them into something more, we mixed them with some hummus, olives, celery and spring onions.

You can make this with either shop-bought hummus, or indeed, make my very speedy (and very low fat) version, which takes just minutes.

Simply empty a tin of drained chickpeas into a food processor and whizz with two cloves of peeled, crushed garlic, the juice and zest of one lemon, salt and pepper, a good few splashes of Tabasco sauce, and a big teaspoonful of tahini. To this, I add a few glugs of olive oil, but that’s it. You can certainly flavour it with some cumin or more tahini or chilli flakes. Or even some chopped herbs such as rosemary.

You’ll find that homemade hummus becomes one of those very quick snacks you can whip out and is always a great dip for kids (and grown-ups) to dunk carrot sticks into, when crisps are beckoning and resolve is floundering.

Roasted carrot and feta salad

Serves two as a main course, four as a starter

Although we used baby carrots for the photo, they tasted absolutely horrible, even after all the roasting and seasoning, so I went back to using big old carrots which were absolutely delicious in comparison. We used two large carrots that weighed 650g but when peeled and trimmed, they went down to 400g of perfectly chopped carrots.

2-4 large carrots (weighing approximately 650g)

1 tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

Few glugs olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 tsp honey or maple syrup

2 tbsp flaked almonds

2 oranges

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp poppy seeds

4 large handfuls baby spinach

100g feta or goats’ cheese

Peel, trim and cut the carrots into batons. In a roasting tray, mix them with the seeds, olive oil, and season with salt, pepper and some honey or maple syrup. Mix well so the carrots are well coated with this sticky, spicy glaze. Roast for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees/gas mark six, until the carrots are a little tender and starting to char. Leave them in for longer if necessary.

While the oven is still hot, toast the almonds briefly until lightly toasted.

Cut the orange into segments, keeping the juice. Whisk the mustard with a little more olive oil and then whisk in the orange juice. Add the poppy seeds. Season well.

Assemble piles of spinach on plates, top with the roasted carrots, the almonds, cheese and spoon over a little of the dressing. This is a perfect supper with some extra cheese and bread on the side.

Smoked salmon and beetroot salad

Serves two as a main course, four as a starter

You’ll have a good bit of crème fraiche left over which is gorgeous mixed with some spuds as a potato salad

500g beetroot (approximately)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 red onion, very finely diced

Salt and pepper

1 tub (250g) crème fraiche

2 tbsp very finely grated horseradish

2 tbsp chopped dill

Squeeze lemon juice

400g (approx) smoked or hot-smoked salmon

4 handfuls of mixed leaves

Roast the beetroot at 180 degrees/gas mark four, wrapped in foil for about 30 minutes. Let them cool down in the foil then unwrap them, peel and slice and toss with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, the very finely diced red onion and plenty of salt and pepper. Set aside to marinate.

Mix the crème fraiche with the horseradish, dill and lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper.

Arrange the leaves on plates, top with the salmon and beetroot, and spoon the juices from the beetroot over the leaves. Blob a few spoonfuls of crème fraiche on top and serve.

Hummus potato salad

Serves six as a side dish

750g new potatoes

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

3 tbsp hummus (shop-bought, or see above for recipe)

10-15 pitted green olives (about 130g)

Few sticks celery, very finely chopped

Bunch spring onions, very finely chopped

Bunch chives, very finely chopped

Bunch coriander, roughly chopped

Boil the potatoes until tender. Then drain and dry them out in the same saucepan with a tea towel on top.

Roughly chop the potatoes while they are still warm and drizzle generously with olive oil and season. Add the hummus, olives, celery and spring onions and mix well.

Check the seasoning and when it’s cooled down to room temperature, add the herbs and mix well. Serve straight away.

Domini recommends:

I'm mad for really fruity, peppery olive oils and I think I've found my new favourites from Toby Simmonds's Real Olive
Company. Try its Tras os Montes from Portugal or the Kalamata from Greece, for a real taste of the summer.

For the carrot salad on this page, you could try using some Knockdrinna sheeps' or goats' cheese. It is my
new favourite cheese, available in Sheridans and other good food stores. It's absolutely delicious, creamy and full of flavour. I can't decide whether I like the Knockdrinna Gold goats' or the Knockdrinna Meadow sheep's cheese better. You can also buy direct online from knockdrinna.com

See also itsa.ie