If you plan to prepare each of these salads yourself, timing is important. Start by roasting the beets for the lentil salad; they'll take more than an hour to cook. Next, prepare the pea and corn salad and cucumber-pepper slaw; they each need to sit for 30 minutes before serving.

The sheer variety of flavors and textures that these salads bring to the table make a diverse, filling meal, but if you'd like to add some heft or protein, add a main course salad to your menu.

If you want to keep the salad theme running through dessert, add a few of our unexpected fruit salads to the mix.

These recipes first appeared in our August/September 2013 Heartland Issue in Kerri Conan's story Salad Social. See more articles and recipes from Kansas »