As we approach the end of summer, the odds are you’re getting a little bored with the tried-and-tested salads you’ve relied on over the past couple of months. So I’ve given Aussie favourites a little spin to freshen them up for the last few weeks of the hottest weather.

Greek salad

Slowly roast halved peaches on the barbecue (the outside first, then the faces brushed with olive oil). When softened and striped with grill marks, thickly slice them and scatter them on a platter along with halved cherry tomatoes and chunks of cucumber and feta (or goat’s cheese). Sprinkle everything with fresh lemon thyme, dress with a good drizzle of honey and season with flaky salt (go lightly – the cheese is already salty). This salad goes well with barbecued pork sausages, pork souvlaki or roast chook or pork. You can add black olives if you like.

Old salad Niçoise

Lose the green beans, hard-boiled eggs, potatoes and olives to take your Niçoise closer to the original – ripe tomatoes, fine slices of red wine-pickled golden shallot and fillets of good anchovies. Instead of canned tuna go a little luxe and quickly sear a couple of tuna steaks, then slice them and drape them on top. Ideally you want the tuna to stay glossy and rare in the centre. The dressing is just olive oil, black pepper and lemon juice and zest. Simply better.

Roast vegie salad

Give the usual balsamic-dressed roast root vegetable salad a Thai twist. Roast thin wedges of pumpkin until they’re all chewy. Brush them with a dressing of ginger, lime juice, sweet chilli sauce, a good splash of fish sauce and the roots and stems of a bunch of coriander and continue roasting them till they’re a little sticky. Sprinkle them with shards of a chilli peanut praline (so easy to make a home) and serve them buried under loads of Thai basil, Vietnamese mint and coriander leaves.

Vegan caesar salad

With all that bacon and cheese, the typical Caesar these days is about as slimming as a couple of Mars bars, but turn it into a vegan version with silken tofu whipped with capers, nutritional yeast, garlic and mustard powder for a new-age Caesar dressing and it’s a whole lot more virtuous. Especially when you replace the grated parmesan with grated Brazil nuts and use rashers of carrot ‘bacon’ – slow-roasted ribbons of carrot brushed with a mix of tamari, white miso and smoked paprika. This recipe, from my latest cookbook, More, is available here.

Coleslaw

Forget the boring old combo of carrot and white cabbage. Step things up by julienning green apple, beetroot and red cabbage and toss it all in a yoghurt dressing hit with a little cider vinegar and a few caraway seeds. Or whip sour cream with a little milk and horseradish or fresh chopped dill if that is more your speed. Serve this latter version with smoked fish, beef or roast salmon. Serve the other with everything and anything.

Potato salad

Slow-roast discs of sweet potato and mix them with the burnished kernels of barbecued corn. Toss them with roughly crushed smoked almonds, chopped coriander leaves and a dressing of olive oil marbled with a coarse mixture of miso and maple syrup.

Green salad

There’s a lovely simplicity about a classic green salad with a vinaigrette, but loading cos leaves with diced cucumber, thinly sliced iced radish, pink pickled ginger like you get with sushi and sliced avocado will give you the same verdant simplicity with more texture and flavour punch. Fine lines of Kewpie mayonnaise dressing on top adds some lushness here, too.

Haloumi salad

Roast quartered plums that have been tossed with red wine and olive oil in a hot oven. Reserve the wine and olive oil left in the bowl for the dressing. To serve, place the plums on rocket leaves, sprinkle them with crushed toasted hazelnuts and top with haloumi that has been set to just-warm in the oven on baking paper until it weeps milky tears (rather than the usual squeaky fried variety). Hit the leftover oil and red wine with a dribble of pomegranate molasses (stirred in to just marble the mix) for the dressing.

Prawn cocktail salad

The classic prawn cocktail has always been a quick toss away from becoming
a salad so why not take that step? Load a bowl of thinly sliced iceberg lettuce with halved cherry tomatoes, cubes of avocado tossed in lime and loads of cooked prawns cut into chunks and zigzag it all with a dressing made by mixing sriracha sauce with good mayo and the broken-up flesh scraped from the limes after you’ve squeezed them to dress the avocado. Switch the sriracha in the dressing with a mashed chipotle chilli in adobo for a Mexican twist, and add a generous hit of fresh coriander.  

Find the impossible vegan caesar salad recipe by Matt Preston here.