I don’t know about you, but lately, it has been way too hot to cook by the time dinnertime rolls around. I’m craving cold food – food that is light, crunchy and COLD (aka SALAD). Ironically, I’ve been in a bit of a salad rut so when that happens I usually seek out a boost of inspiration from whatever fruit and veggies are looking good at the markets as well as recipes I find online or in cookbooks…and of course salads I’ve made and loved in my own kitchen.

Today I’m sharing with you a few of my favorite healthy dinner salads from the archives. I dug back to find a couple I haven’t made in a while but I’ve eaten plenty of (I’m looking at you Blackened Fish Taco Salad). For the most part, these salad are no fuss and have minimal cooking involved. Beans, rotisserie chicken, leftover grilled steak or chicken are ideal to making any dinner salad complete in an instant, but if you have to quickly sear a piece of fish or some shrimp in a skillet it’s worth the effort and won’t heat up your kitchen too much.

I hope you find a little healthy dinner salad inspiration here to day! Have a great weekend!

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The best part of grilling up a nice flank steak, like this Grilled Flank Steak with Brown Sugar Rub I grilled up a couple of weeks ago, is the leftovers. Throw a few thin slices on a salad like this Steak Spinach Salad with Grilled Peaches and Red Onion and you won’t hear anyone complain about leftovers for dinner, that’s for sure. You can use leftovers from this London Broil marinade recipe I love to make too.

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It’s a happy day for my husband when he finds out I came home with a steak from the grocery store. For whatever reason, we (I) don’t eat a lot of red meat, I think it may stem from my family not eating a lot of it in general when I was growing up. I have nothing against it, I just don’t have a natural desire to cook or eat it regularly…but the other day I did get a craving for a nicely grilled flank steak.

Flank steak is probably my favorite cut of steak, it’s lean and absolutely delicious grilled, like this Grilled Flank Steak with Brown Sugar rub I’m sharing today. Any other flank steak fans out there?

Summer has officially kicked off in our household (yay!!) – school ended earlier this week and I have to say, I am so happy to breathe easy again. This last month of school has been ridiculously busy with projects, book reports and school functions…as it is every year. I forget what May is like until I’m a week in and then I’m like…Ohhhhh myyyyy, where is summer????

Well, summer is here for us, and we are all smiles in these parts. I’m a little extra smiley this week because not only did school end, but a big house project I had been planning ended too. When we moved into our new house a year and a half ago I had a list of a million things I wanted to do, reality is you need a lot of money and time to get all those things done so I’m pacing myself. 🙂

My big spring/summer project was to get my outdoor space cleaned up and functional. We had pavers added to a couple of areas off our driveway and pool area and turned the space into a beautiful outdoor seating area and place to grill. I have always loved using my grill and considered it an extension of my kitchen. With my new outdoor space, my grill is back in business and I’m about to turn into a grilling machine – this is my favorite time of year to use the grill, not only because of the weather (it’s actually NOT ideal grilling weather in Florida ha ha), but because of all the amazing produce in season. Grilled veggies are the best!

Here’s a peek at one of my new happy spaces…our new grilling area and my herb container garden (right off our kitchen and family room):

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