As an American RV owner, we make the most of this lifestyle by rolling with the seasons. When summer temperatures climb, we head to the mountains. But even high altitude campsites can get uncomfortably warm, and cooking over a stove isn’t fun. That’s when we reach for our three top RV salad recipes for hot weather.

Easy RV Salad Meals for Summer

If you can’t take the heat in the kitchen, don’t cook! Instead, plan your meals around these three easy RV salad recipes. Anyone can make them and everyone will love the result–even vegetarians. Each salad has a fun ethnic flair, but call for simple, familiar ingredients like carrots and cabbage. You’ll save space in your RV refrigerator because the RV salad meal recipes below call for many of the same ingredients. The result is three filling RV salads that you can scale up or down in size depending on how many people are eating.

Chinese Salmon (or Chicken) Salad

This recipe can be as basic as you wish, or turn it into a “kitchen sink salad” to use up random vegetables lurking in your refrigerator. The salad dressing for this recipe is incredibly versatile too. Double it and use as a basting marinade for chicken meat.

Step 1: Prep Salad Ingredients:

• Romaine, chopped
• Red or green cabbage, shredded
• Peas of any kind
• Cilantro, chopped
• Nori strips (Sushi wrap)
• Sweet peppers, sliced
• Green onions
• Dry roasted cashews, peanuts or sunflower seeds
• Sesame seeds
• Crispy Chow Mein Noodles

Step 2: Make Dressing

• pinch Allspice
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard mixed with 1 tsp water (or 1/4 tsp Wasabi)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Hoisin sauce (available in Asian cuisine section)
• 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 3-5 tbsp grape seed or vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp honey or agave
• Whisk dressing ingredients together. Reserve some for grilling.
• Toss salad ingredients and dressing.

Step 3: Grill Salmon Steak

• Rub salmon with sesame oil and soy sauce. Extra firm grilled tofu is a great substitute for vegetarians.
• Sear on hot oiled grill, until medium cooked (about 2 minutes per side, per inch)
• Plate salad. Top with grilled fillet or tofu. Garnish with sesame seed and crunchy noodles

Mexican Fiesta Taco Salad

Every camping trip needs a few cans of beans along for the ride. A Mexican Fiesta Taco Salad is one of the better uses for the musical fruit. It’s also a great way to use up bottom-of-the-bag broken taco chips. And once again, the vegetarians will enjoy it if you substitute real ground beef for a similar plant-based meat substitute product.

Step 1: Prep Salad Ingredients:

• Bag of taco chips (broken are fine)
• Can of beans (black or pinto work best)
• Ground beef crumbles
• Taco seasoning
• Romaine lettuce, chopped
• Red or green cabbage, shredded
• Carrots, shredded
• Green onions, sliced
• Grape tomatoes, sliced
• Radish, sliced
• Black olives, sliced

Step 2: Saute meat

• Saute meat crumbles with taco seasoning. Let cool.
• Step 3: Layer ingredients
• Layer salad ingredients in this order:
• Chips
• Beans
• Meat
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Carrots, onions, tomato, radish and whatever else you are adding.

Step 4: Drizzle with dressing

• No need to whip up a homemade dressing today. A store bought bottle of Ranch dressing works great! We spiced ours up with tasty chipotle sauce.

Step 5: Garnish with olives and enjoy!

Summer Salad Rolls with Dipping Dressing

Here’s another fun salad originating from hot, humid Asia. Traditional salad ingredients get bundled up burrito-style with rice paper wrappers. Unlike spring rolls, they are not fried in oil but dipped in a tasty sweet chili dressing, found next to the wrappers in the Asian section of your grocery store.

Step 1: Prep ingredients

• Rice paper wrappers (available in Asian cuisine section)
• Lettuce, chopped
• Sweet peppers, thinly sliced
• Avocado, thinly sliced
• Green onion, thinly sliced
• Cilantro or basil, chopped
• Cucumber, seeded and julienned
• Carrots and broccoli, shredded
• Imitation crab or cooked shrimp, butterflied

Step 2: Roll in rice paper wrappers

Salad roll assembly looks complicated, but if you’ve ever rolled a burrito, you can handle the job. This video offers a great demonstration:

Step 3: Dip, eat and enjoy!

There’s no need to break a sweat and make your own salad roll dressing. Plenty of tasty dipping sauces exist in the Asian cuisine aisle. My favorite is sweet chili sauce, but peanut sauce or straight-up soy sauce will also work.

Smart RVers know that when it’s hot outside, there’s no need to whip up complicated meals inside our RV kitchen. These main dish salads are a fast, inexpensive way to eat well and sweat less during summer RV adventures.

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About the author: Rene Agredano

Rene Agredano, a Coach-Net member since 2015, is a self-employed full-time RVer who enjoys writing, jewelry design and animal advocacy. Her adventures with a three-legged dog and husband Jim are chronicled at LiveWorkDream.com

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