Creole and Cajun Salad Recipes

Now hold on to your footballs--it can be a picnic without potato or macaroni salad! This has similar ingredients ​but is a nice change from the usual. The beauty of this salad is that the flavor of the other ingredients comes through even better than it does in potato or macaroni salad.

This has a bite to it from the pepper, but is mild enough to pass as "not spicy." 

Rumor has it that Grandma devised this recipe to use up two ingredients that were always in abundant supply: chicken (which they raised) and pecans (from the pecan trees on the farm).

This salad was a favorite as we were growing up, and we requested it whenever we were gathering at our childhood home. It was usually made the same wonderful way. But every once in a while Dad would get creative, which meant using leftovers in some horribly inappropriate manner. We were all terribly disappointed when he decided that he didn't want to waste some leftover pineapple yogurt, and added it to the finished salad. No one likes to waste food, but spoiling an entire dish to use up leftovers? We learned to steer clear of Dad's "icebox creations."

Coleslaw is delicious on its own, but my favorite way of serving it is on sandwiches. In fact, I always make a large batch so there is enough leftover to put on sandwiches--pulled pork is traditional, but I also like it on ham sandwiches, and on po' boys instead of lettuce. The creamy, crunchy coleslaw is a wonderful contrast to fried seafood in a po' boy.

Coleslaw is better several hours or a day or two after it is made.

If it's already good, why mess with it?

Such is the thought on any recipe that is just the way you like it, and such is the thought on any recipe that your mama or grandma made. Family recipes are almost sacred. Your parents and siblings would be puzzled, if not downright annoyed, if you brought grandma's potato salad to a gathering made in a different way. And don't even think of adding some non-Cajun ingredient, such as sun-dried tomatoes. People probably wouldn't even try it.

Cucumbers and tomatoes seem made to go together. Perhaps that's why they both ripen around the same time each summer.

The attractive colors of red, green, and white are as complementary to each other as are the crispy cucumber texture and that of the soft tomato.

Simple...but a summer favorite!

This elegant salad may be prepared early in the day and assembled at dinner time. It could also be served as an hors d'oeuvre, with the shrimp-topped potato slices arranged decoratively on a platter.