These 40 Spring Salads Will Have You Wanting To Eat Like A Rabbit This Easter

We don’t know about you, but once spring has sprung, we’re ready to ditch our slow-cooked soups, stews, and casseroles in lieu of fresh fruits and veggies. For many of us, the first time we really get to celebrate that bounty is during our Easter meals. Tender lamb and glazed ham get all the glory, but like for most holidays, we’re really all about the sides. What better way to showcase all the bright, colorful, new produce in season than with a salad? These 40 Easter salads are perfect whether you’re hosting Sunday brunch or dinner, but honestly, they’re worth many a revisit all spring long too.

And don’t worry, we’re not talking about just greens here! Yes, a simple gorgeous arugula or spinach salad is a delight after a long winter, but if we're going for a green base, we prefer to jazz it up. You could add meaty protein, like in our chicken Caesar salad or our Niçoise; fun fried cheeses, like in our fried halloumi salad or our fried goat cheese salad; or hard-boiled eggs, like in our spring Cobb salad or our chef salad. These little additions are kind of like an Easter Egg hunt for adults, and we bet you’ll never want salad without them again.

Though canned beans are available year round, there's something that feels particularly springy about them (and if you want to go fresh, they should start popping up at farmers' markets mid-April). In homage, we like to make our antipasto chickpea salad, our bacon pea salad, our three-bean salad, and our roasted chickpea and avocado salad. The best part about these? They’re ripe for improvisation, so feel free to swap in and out your favorite ingredients.

We’ve also included a number of classic spins on our warm weather faves, pasta and potato salad. Check out our pesto pasta salad, our red potato salad, our super green pasta salad, or our tzatziki potato salad. Love the carbs but want more protein? Go for our shrimp salad, our ham salad (so good for leftover ham too!), or our crab meat salad. Craving something sweet? Try our creamy grape salad, our ambrosia salad, or our Waldorf salad. They’re the kind of retro classics everyone will enjoy (or at least enjoy talking about 😉) this Easter.

Want even more Easter ideas? Check out our top Easter side dishes, our best Easter desserts, and our favorite Easter treats too.

When you think pea salad, you might be imagining the mayo-based kind. Great in their own ways, but we decided to lighten ours up a bit (so you can save room for more Easter candy!). This one is fresh, crunchy, and has the most delicious bacon vinaigrette.

Get the Bacon Pea Salad recipe.

This versatile chickpea salad is a great Easter side but can easily be a full meal on its own! Adding a spoonful of Dijon mustard to your red wine vinaigrette makes it creamier in both taste and body—consider it your secret weapon in making a classic dressing that much better.

Get the Antipasto Chickpea Salad recipe.

“Decadent” might not come to mind when you think of salad, but this one definitely is. With a rich, tangy dressing, tender, roasted chicken thighs, crunchy croutons, and a snowfall of freshly grated Parm, this chicken Caesar salad is more voluptuous than virtuous.

Get the Chicken Caesar Salad recipe.

Everyone’s favorite Cobb salad just got a spring-y makeover. This lightened-up version has lots of crunchy in-season veggies, homemade croutons, hard-boiled eggs for protein, and a creamy lemon-dill dressing spiked with raw garlic. Yum!

Get the Spring Cobb Salad recipe.

This carrot-and-raisin salad gets an upgrade with a slightly spicy, slightly sweet harissa and honey sauce. It brings out the sweet freshness of the carrots and makes the whole dish sing. You might be tempted to pour it over all of your salads from here on out.

Get the Moroccan Carrot Salad recipe.

This potato salad recipe is simple, with two types of mustard (Dijon for kick and whole-grain for a bit of sweetness) and some pickled red onions for acid, crispness, and color. With only 2/3 cup mayo, it isn't too fatty but is still rich and creamy.

Get the Red Potato Salad recipe.

This bean salad sticks close to the standard in most ways—featuring cannellini, kidney, and green beans—but we kept it much lighter in sugar, for a healthier and fresher-tasting modern version. Serve this for Easter and watch it disappear.

Get the Three-Bean Salad recipe.

The gang's all here in this Cobb salad, except with some big-time upgrades. Strawberries stand in for the standard tomatoes, while feta takes the place of blue cheese. Fear not, there's still an extra-creamy buttermilk-based dressing that coats every bite.

Get the Strawberry Chicken Cobb Salad recipe.

Whether a creamy fruit salad horrifies you or makes you want to dig in immediately, Ambrosia salad's a classic for a reason. It's been around since the 1800s, when citrus fruit first became available more prevalently in the U.S. The more you know!

Get the Ambrosia Salad recipe.

We recommend sticking with the bright lemony dressing and finishing this salad with some goat cheese to add creamy tanginess, but otherwise, truly anything goes. Swap in different beans, any of your favorite roasted seasonal veggies, or even different greens.

Get the Anything Goes Grain Salad recipe.

Packed with crispy bacon, broccoli, cheddar cheese, and sharp red onion all tossed in a creamy dressing, this is a forever crowd-pleaser (and not just for those on a keto diet!).

Get the Keto Broccoli Salad recipe.

This salad is the perfect way to lighten up any holiday meal, including Easter brunch or dinner. It's packed with all the things we like to pair with sweet potato—feta, dried cranberries, and red onions—and it's great served hot or cold.

Get the Sweet Potato Salad recipe.

Created in 1896 for a charity ball held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, this salad used to be composed of just three ingredients: apples, celery, and mayo. Sounds weird, but it's a classic. Our modern take adds juicy grapes and walnuts, all enveloped in a creamy, lemony dressing.

Get the Waldorf Salad recipe.

This salad is one of our favorite ways to enjoy halloumi cheese. It has crunchy fennel (or sub celery if you like), juicy orange segments, creamy avocado, crispy fried pita, and a simple herb-packed dressing that ties it all together. It's the perfect anytime side on Easter Sunday.

Get the Fried Halloumi Salad recipe.

The roasted cauliflower here is perfectly spiced with just a little bit of heat, and the creamy avocado dressing helps balance everything out. This salad good enough to be a casual main dish, but is easy enough to make a great, simple Easter side too.

Get the Roasted Cauliflower Salad recipe.

According to food historians, the first Niçoise salad (from Nice, on France’s southeastern coast) contained only tomatoes, olive oil, and anchovies. Over the years, ingredients have been added and subtracted, so feel free to do the same and go with your favorites!

Get the Niçoise Salad recipe.

We don’t believe in boring salads at Delish, and crunchy apples and tart cranberries bring a lot of life to this one. Feel free to swap in or out your favorite apples, nuts, or even cheese—it's easily customizable.

Get the Cranberry Apple Quinoa Salad recipe.

The salad is PACKED, which means it's never boring. It typically comes with three kinds of deli meat, two cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, and lots of veggies, but feel free to get creative and add your faves.

Get the Chef Salad recipe.

A quick pan-fry makes creamy goat cheese a fun, super-crunchy salad topper. It’s a creative take on croutons that makes a simple salad so much more exciting. These are also great on their own and would be delicious on a cheese board with a little drizzle of honey (so make extra!).

Get the Fried Goat Cheese Salad recipe.

The Caesar salad is the best salad, full stop. It's creamy yet light, and has a punch of umami that you can't find anywhere else. It's perfect all on its own, but free to add chicken or fish for some added protein if you like.

Get the Caesar Salad recipe.

This pasta salad is a classic, featuring a homemade basil-and-pine nut pesto, a generous amount of Parmesan, and juicy grape tomatoes. It's worth getting out your nicest olive oil for this recipe since the flavor will shine through.

Get the Pesto Pasta Salad recipe.

Having an outdoor Easter celebration? This is a picnic and BBQ staple. Grapes are tossed in a sweetened mixture of cream cheese and sour cream and topped with pecans, kind of like a twist on the ambrosia or Waldorf salads of yore.

Get the Creamy Grape Salad recipe.

This super-easy ham salad is as delicious between bread for Easter lunch as it is on crackers as an app before Easter dinner. Hot tip: This salad is also an amazing use for any spiral ham you have leftover after Easter too.

Get the Ham Salad recipe.

This Lebanese (or Syrian, depending who you ask 😉) salad is sure to improve whatever it's paired with—we love it piled high on top of baked salmon, alongside chicken meatballs, or even tucked inside a homemade falafel sandwich. (Trust us on that one, it's FIRE.)

Get the Tabouli Salad recipe.

Fattoush is a very fresh and bright Middle Eastern salad usually served alongside a protein (like Easter lamb, perhaps?) to help cut the fat. Pro tip: Let the juices that drip to the bottom of the salad serve as extra dressing for whatever you're eating next to it.

Get the Fattoush recipe.

This gorgeous salad is hearty enough all on its own to be a simple, low-key Easter dinner. While the salmon is cooking, you can get all of your veggie chopping done too, and it'll all come together in less than 30 minutes.

Get the Greek Salmon Salad recipe.

The tahini-ranch here is a lightened-up dressing that is better than any bottle you could buy. It, plus crunchy roasted chickpeas, creamy avocado, and feta, make this a salad you'll revisit again and again.

Get the Roasted Chickpea and Avocado Salad recipe.

This tzatziki-inspired potato salad is very dill-forward and nicely lemony and bright with yogurt. It also features crunchy cucumber—both fresh and pickled—and creamy boiled baby red potatoes. Add in a bit of zesty red onions and a pinch of MSG, and you’ve got a refreshing and indulgent Easter side.

Get the Tzatziki Potato Salad recipe.

Why should zucchini get all the glory for replacing noodles? When picking your papaya for this salad, just make sure you’re choosing a green fruit. At its unripened stage, it's crunchy and a refreshingly blank canvas flavor-wise that is perfect for this sweet and spicy salad that will add variety to your Easter spread.

Get the Green Papaya Salad recipe.

Want a show-stopping centerpiece for your Easter table? Look no further than this gorgeous layered salad. Make it ahead of time, then toss it together just before serving.

Get the Seven-Layer Salad recipe.

This salad turns lump crab meat into something spectacularly delicious, in 10 minutes flat. Get the crackers ready! Have extra crab? Turn it into crab cakes next.

Get the Crab Meat Salad recipe.

It’s not so hard to eat your greens when they come in pasta salad form. Sweet baby spinach is great here, but peppery arugula or tender baby kale would work well too.

Get the Super Green Pasta Salad recipe.

If you fancy tuna salad and macaroni salad, the only logical thing to do is bring the two together. This recipe calls for quick-pickled red onion, shredded carrots (the Easter Bunny would approve), and chopped pickles so you get nicely tart and crunchy elements in every bite.

Get the Tuna Macaroni Salad recipe.

These noods get coated in a spicy-sweet dressing that can honestly go on anything. The heat of fresh ginger, garlic, and sriracha is tamed by the mayo and a touch of sugar; the creaminess of the mayo is in turn nicely balanced out by the tart rice vinegar and lime zest. Yum!

Get the Noodle Salad recipe.

Many restaurant versions of the dish, including The Cheesecake Factory's version, use wonton strips and crispy rice noodles. We sub in a block of broken up ramen—the cheap, dried stuff, not the fresh noodles that come refrigerated. Broken up, the crunchy, wavy noodles act as croutons. The almonds can be easily swapped for cashews or roasted peanuts too if you like.

Get the Crunchy Mandarin Orange-Chicken Salad recipe.

Egg salad is wonderful as is. But add bacon, blue cheese, avocado, and tomatoes, á la a Cobb salad? Now that's a dish special enough for an Easter brunch.

Get the Cobb Egg Salad recipe.

This vibrant salad recipe uses canned chickpeas, meaning it comes together in less than 30 minutes. 😎 Our lemon-parsley vinaigrette here is perfectly tart and fresh with a hint of spice, and you're going to want to put it on everything.

Get the Mediterranean Chickpea Salad recipe.

Shrimp salad is perfectly classic, but some might (wrongly) think it's old school. Ours is far from the gloppy mayo-laden dish from the '80s. We brightened it with red onion, celery, fresh dill, and a light mayo dressing with Dijon and lemon zest for zing.

Get the Shrimp Salad recipe.

Paired with sweet strawberries, herby chicken, creamy goat cheese, and spicy red onions, even so-called spinach haters will love this recipe.

Get the Strawberry Spinach Salad recipe.

You can get creative with mix-ins and seasonings (lookin' at you, Cobb egg salad), but this recipe is the perfect base with just 6 core ingredients. Try swapping your mustard or adding in pickled elements, extra veggies, or more seasonings to switch it up.

Get the Best-Ever Egg Salad recipe.