Pasta Salad

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

Lighter, brighter flavors make this old-fashioned salad new again.

If you have leftover cooked chicken or turkey on hand, use it instead of the shrimp.

This meatless salad combines couscous with roasted eggplant, zucchini, red bell pepper and leeks. Cooked sausage may be added to make it heartier. Serve with rolls or baguette slices and iced tea or white wine.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. The pickles add crunch and tangy flavor to an old-time favorite.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 35 min

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

Pan-roasting or toasting in a dry cast-iron skillet is a cooking technique used often in Mexican cuisine. We use it here to bring up the flavors of corn, onion, and pumpkin seeds. We created this salad as a main course, but it's also a terrific side dish. Active time: 50 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Gaze at rings on your left hand. Remember how, when you were single in New York and men made rude remarks to you on the street, you'd dream about the day your boyfriend would put an engagement ring on your finger. Those trips with your friend, Megan, to Tiffany's—how the diamonds sparkled under glass. And so, my friend, it comes to this: Orientalish pasta salad for the kabillionth time.

"I run a salon, and I’m an instructor at a cooking school," writes Sandy Ercolano of Ridgewood, New Jersey. "It seems that I’m always in the kitchen. At home I cook meals and come up with recipes for my classes. Of course, my family eagerly tries anything I make." To turn this main-course salad into a side dish or vegetarian entrée, omit the shrimp.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 30 min