Salads for lunch

[EvenStephens]

Tell me about your favorite salad to take for lunch.

Thought I experiment with dinners, and I love to cook with a variety of ingredients, we don't change it up for lunch. We both teach, and we're usually packing lunch at 5:30 am. We need to have everything on hand and chopped, sliced, and cooked in advance.

We are in a salad rut, with lots of repeats....help us bring some variety to our lunch bag.

A typical salad at our place might include:

Diced ham or turkey
Shredded cheese
Hard boiled egg
Sliced grape tomatoes
Romaine

I'm more open to sweet toppings (apples, strawberries, dried cranberry); he's usually open to tex-mex or Greek flavors.

We're interested in trying different proteins. I like to be able to prep on Sunday for the week.

[magdala]

Israeli salad:    cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh mint, white wine vinaigrette (I like adding leftover grilled shrimp to this)
Spring salad:   spinach, strawberries, toasted pecans, poppyseed dressing (I like serving this with grilled salmon)
Dad's salad:    steak, romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, french fried onion rings, italian dressing
Tomato salad: tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, toasted pecans, scallions, fresh ground black pepper, balsamic vinaigrette
Apple-spinach: spinach, cucumber, apples, toasted walnuts, ranch dressing This goes well with roast chicken and tilapia
Tomato-arugula: Arugula, romaine, tomato, croutons, italian dressing. This goes well with steak.
Orange-greens: Spinach, Boston lettuce, orange segments, craisins, scallions, honey mustard dressing. This goes well with roast chicken.
Sugar snap salad: www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sugar-Snap-Salad-366394
Spinach-pear: www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spinach-Salad-with-Bosc-Pears-Cranberries-Red-Onion-and-Toasted-Hazelnuts-355430

I don't know that any of these would last a week all made up.    How do you get your salads to last a week?

[EvenStephens]

I don't assemble them on Sunday, but I like to chop, slice, grate, hard boil, grill, etc. on Sunday so I can assemble at 5:30 every morning.

Thanks for some great suggestions.

[doughseedough]

I used to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and then use that meat in salads all week. I put spinach, cranberries, and maybe some red onion. I'm a big fan of plain high-quality balsamic vinegar for dressing. There's a local vinegar/oil place I get it from and I love their pomegranate balsamic!

[midnightrae]

Mar 29, 2013 6:23:56 GMT -5 doughseedough said:

I used to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and then use that meat in salads all week. I put spinach, cranberries, and maybe some red onion. I'm a big fan of plain high-quality balsamic vinegar for dressing. There's a local vinegar/oil place I get it from and I love their pomegranate balsamic!

I need to see if a local olive oil and vinegar place has a pomegranate balsamic as well. That sounds delicious.