To me, summer is the time to have great salads. I’m not just taking about boring lettuce with dressing. There are so many fresh vegetables in season and you can make a delicious side in minutes.

The salad I’ve made today is a cucumber-based salad from Cookie & Kate (link here)*. There are lots of other yummy ingredients too that make it so good and colourful. Aside from the cucumber, there are cherry tomatoes, radishes and avocado. I love all the crunch from the veggies and the creamy avocado.

*Note: If you didn’t know, I actually cooked my way through the entire Cookie & Kate cookbook called Love Real Food. That was a really amazing cookbook and if you are interested in cooking more vegetarian/vegetable-focused dishes, I suggest looking into it. You can see all my Love Real Food posts by clicking here.

The dressing here was so simple, just balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. There is supposed to be minced garlic but I didn’t have any. I love the flavour of balsamic vinegar, it’s a little acidic but sweeter than other kinds of vinegar, which makes this dressing perfectly balanced.

I have no complaints about this salad. It was really tasty and bright. It is great as a side for any dinner or you could even toss it with some cooked pasta (and maybe make double the dressing) and that would be a delicious pasta salad.