A salad can be so much more than a lovely tousle of greens on a plate, and there’s no better time to expand your salad repertoire than in the heat of summer.

Not only do salads provide a light and cool meal, but making them ahead means you can walk in the door in the evening and pull dinner straight from the fridge.

Although there’s nothing wrong with such old favorites as tuna and chicken salads, there are plenty of healthful alternatives to these mayonnaise-laden standbys.

Hema Mehta-Warren’s vegetable salad with mint has only a quarter cup of sour cream to its 4 cups of vegetables, and her chicken salad is bound with Dijon mustard instead of mayonnaise.

The Cordova, Tenn., resident, originally from New Delhi, entertains frequently and usually serves a salad as a cooling accompaniment to her spicy Indian dishes.

“Traditional salads tend to get soft, so I’m looking for ones that hold up better,” she said.

She has created two that are particularly popular: chopped vegetables with a mint dressing and what has become a standard at her house, a salad of hearts of palm and green peas flavored with cilantro.

“I have to make a lot of it because people tend to want to take it home with them,” she said. “It’s easy to make. They’re just lazy.”

But even the laziest among us can manage Mehta-Warren’s salads; they’re little more than chopping and tossing. She uses a blender to make the mint sauce.

Hema Mehta-Warren's salad is a combination of chopped vegetables and mint dressing. It is topped off with sour cream. Mehta-Warren, of Tennessee, uses the salad as an accompaniment to spicy Indian dishes

Personal chef Carol Borchardt, of Memphis, spends her days cooking for clients, so it’s a welcome relief for her to keep ready-made dishes like her black-eyed pea salad handy in her refrigerator.

“I kind of got the idea from a recipe I found in a magazine, then I adapted it to our tastes,” she said. “It’s a favorite of ours. My husband and I enjoy it every summer.”

Borchardt owns A Thought for Food. She prepares meals for her clients in their homes and has created recipes of her own when using up stray ingredients after a day’s work.

“Sometimes I’ll find myself throwing things together because I’ll come home with, say, a few scallions and a tomato or two,” she said.

She recently created a potato salad that contains artichoke hearts and red onion.

Salads have been on our plates for decades.

The word salad is derived from the Latin “sal” for salt. According to “The Dictionary of American Food and Drink,” the first salads of Rome were dressed with little more than salt.

In America until around the time of the Civil War, salads were primarily poultry, seafood or vegetables surrounded by a few lettuce leaves.

But European-style green salads were being served to the privileged at the Swiss-owned Delmonico’s in New York. And in 1896 the Waldorf Salad was created at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel by former Delmonico’s chef Oscar Tschirky.

Other salad milestones include Caesar Cardini’s namesake creation at a Tijuana restaurant in 1924; the Cobb salad, invented at Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant in 1937; the health salads of the 1960s; the salad bars (and the taco salad) of the 1970s; and pasta salads of the 1980s.

Salad mixes came to the grocery stores, broccoli became a popular salad base and ethnic salads became more popular in the 1990s. Pasta salads are available at deli counters, yet there is so little trouble involved in putting one together that it seems wasteful to purchase it ready-made.

Any salad, in fact, is little more than combining complementary ingredients with a dressing. Once you move past the notion of tossed greens, a salad is as forgiving as a casserole or a stew.

Vegetables with mint infusion

1 cup blanched carrots, diced

1 cup blanched green beans, chopped in 1/2-inch pieces

1 cup diced boiled potatoes

1 cup green, yellow and/or red diced bell peppers

Dressing:

1 cup fresh mint leaves

1/2 onion, chopped

3 fresh Serrano peppers

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup sour cream

Salt to taste

Puree dressing ingredients in a blender and pour over chopped vegetables. Add sour cream and salt. Refrigerate. Serves 6-8.

Source: Hema Mehta-Warren.

Hearts of palm delight

1 can hearts of palm, drained and rinsed gently in cold water, cut into discs

16-ounce bag frozen English peas

4 crisp Roma tomatoes, cut in 1/2-inch wedges

2 cucumbers, diced, seeds removed

1 Vidalia onion, shredded

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1/4 cup French’s Wasabi dressing

1 tablespoon dried tarragon leaves

Place peas in colander, rinse with warm water until thawed and drain. Mix all ingredients gently in a large bowl. If desired, garnish with more tomato slices and sprigs of fresh parsley. Refrigerate before serving. Serves 8.

Source: Hema Mehta-Warren

Black-eyed pea salad

1 1/2 cups dried black-eyed peas

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

1 small red onion, diced

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, minced

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 large clove garlic, minced

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Fill a saucepan with approximately 3 cups water. Add the peas, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook partially covered 15 to 20 minutes or until tender. Be careful not to overcook. Drain, rinse with cold water and transfer to a bowl.

While the peas are cooking, prepare the vegetables. When the peas are cooked and cooled, combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix well and adjust seasoning. For the flavors to blend, refrigerate approximately 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh cilantro sprigs. Serves 8.

Source: Carol Borchardt

Potato-artichokes salad with horseradish

dressing

5 pounds medium russet or other starchy potato, scrubbed

2 14-ounce cans artichoke heart quarters (nonmarinated), drained, rinsed, blotted dry

1 cup diced celery

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 small red onion, diced

1 16-ounce jar mayonnaise

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes into thirds if large, in half if medium. Place in a large pot and fill with enough cool water to cover. Add salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender. Be careful not to overcook. Drain and cool. Peel the potatoes and cut into bite-size pieces. Add the artichokes, celery, red pepper and onion.

Combine the mayonnaise, mustard, horseradish, parsley, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix until well blended. Pour over the potato and vegetable mix and stir until well blended.

Garnish with additional chopped fresh parsley and freshly ground black pepper. Serves 10.

Source: Carol Borchardt.

Cauliflower salad

1 small head cauliflower

1 cup chopped ripe olives

1/4 cup sliced green onions

1/4 cup slivered bell peppers

1 2-ounce jar chopped pimientos, drained

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup salad oil

1/4 cup vinegar

Thinly slice cauliflower. Add olives, onions, peppers and pimientos. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over vegetables. Refrigerate at least 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Serves 10-12.

Source: “My Fare Ladle” by Rebecca Beeland Noojin.