My Salad Hack

We've been eating a lot more salad.  The problem is that making a salad can be time-intensive.  I admit that I use bagged/container mixes as my base.  When you want mixed greens, it doesn't seem worth it to try to hunt down individual heads of arugula, mescal, spinach leaves, etc.  I buy and organic mix in a plastic tub from Aldi.  As for topping, tomatoes are a no-go in winter -- plus I don't like them over greens.  I prefer a "toothier" and more fruit-like topping.  Last night, it was a mix of red and yellow peppers with strawberries, walnuts, mushrooms, and onions. I probably threw in a few dried cranberries.

I no longer toss the ingredients and then dress the salad.  Instead, I mix the oil, vinegar/lemon and maybe some prepared dressing together.  That gets tossed with the "topping," and I let that sit for at least an hour so the flavors can blend.  Being an old lady with sensitive teeth, sometimes that sits at room temperature.  When we are ready to eat, I put the mixture over the bed of greens, then grate some cheese on the top.

Keeping the greens and toppings separates works  best for me because I use less dressing and if there is too much, I have this mixture on it's own to use over a salad the next day.  Otherwise, the greens or lettuce would get too soggy.  We had some of the pepper mixture from yesterday left over, so I mixed it with more greens today.  You could also mix it with tuna or diced cold chicken to make a lunch salad.

There are so many great alternatives to tomatoes in salads and all you need to do is get ready to do a lot of chopping!