I’ve heard some folks say they're wanting to eat more salads this year.

As someone who generally has a salad a day, I have some ingredient ideas to make your salads more exciting. These are so quick to make, I'll include my go-to dressing and some tips for making salads easy and enjoyable - all in support of these salad goals.

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Prep your ingredients ahead of time

One of the things that makes crafting salads challenging is they can take time. Washing greens, chopping vegetables, assembling ingredients, all this can require a lot of prep. A big timesaver is to prep your salad ingredients ahead so they are all ready for you when you want to assemble. I think prep is easiest to do all at once. Pick a day (I usually do this on Sundays), to prep everything. This means:

• Wash all lettuces and and herbs and set to dry. Store in a Ziploc or plastic bag with a single paper towel to soak up extra moisture
• Wash, dry, and chop kale, broccoli, carrots, and store same as above
• Grate ingredients like beets and fennel and store in a plastic bag in your crisper
• Toast bulk nuts ahead (recipe included!) and store in a Mason jar
• Roast things like sweet potatoes and butternut squash ahead of time to add to your salad

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Vary flavors and textures

• Pickle carrots instead of chopping into those harder-to-eat rounds (recipe included!)
• Roast beets or sweet potatoes for something tender or try roasting radishes instead of using raw (recipe included!)
• Add in grapefruit or orange segments, grated apples, slices of roasted pear
• Add crunch with sunflower seeds, pepitas, nuts

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Add fat to your salad

This makes a salad much more rounded and satisfying. This can be toasted walnuts, avocado, a protein of your choice, garbanzo beans, feta or goat cheese, or a creamy dressing.

Buy the big lettuce

By the big lettuce, I mean the 16 oz container that takes up a whole shelf of your fridge. It’s pre-washed and you’ll always have a blend of greens ready. I notice this keeps longer than lettuce that is in the smaller bags. To make these salad goals, we’ve gotta be prepared with the right equipment! Oh, and that big container is great to save and store other greens in like kale or chard.

Love your dressing

Want to keep it easy? Switch things up by trying a new bottled dressing. My favorites are Annie’s Goddess Dressing and Brianna's Poppyseed Dressing. If you want to make your own, make it ahead of time to last throughout the week. Included is my no frills, (but super easy) salad dressing I enjoy again and again.

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