How To Turn Grocery Store Salad Kits Into A Full-Fledged Meal

Add a little volume, some protein and carbs, and you've got a substantial dish. Here are the tricks that'll nail the right flavors.
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Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

Pre-packaged salad kits are a boon to many a busy schedule. You’ve seen them in grocery stores, bagged up in the produce aisle, complete with lettuce, mix-ins and a packet of dressing.

They take the work out of washing, drying and chopping; the thought out of topping; and help people discover new favorite salad dressings and leafy greens. In combinations designed by serious research and development teams under the purview of big brand names and chefs like Zal Taleyarkhan, the corporate research chef for salad giant Fresh Express, they’re surefire, scientifically proven palate pleasers.

In testing, these teams “look at the flavor and texture nuances in the greens being used,” he told HuffPost. “We add heartier toppings, like parmesan crisps, when using a shredded kale base, but more delicate ones for a tender green leaf such as spinach to create a balanced salad kit.”

Yet there’s only so much they can do with the limitations imposed by shelf life, different humidity needs, the fragility of ingredients, and just straight-up macronutrient balance.

“I love salad kits! I always grab a few during my weekly grocery trip,” says registered dietitian Casey McCoy. “But the only problem is that, on their own, they usually don’t have enough inclusions to suffice for a satisfying meal.”

But they can.

With just a little more prep, produce and creativity, guided by the crafted flavors and materials provided in that bagged kit, it takes minimal effort to turn a bag of greens into a robust, delicious dinner. We’ll show you how.

Turn up the volume

Traditional salad kits tend to be pretty light and include way more dressing than you really  need. So why not stretch it out, while bulking up the mix nutritionally and visually with a few other add-ins from the produce aisle?

Hearty, crunchy broccoli slaw is one of my favorite picks—it can stand up to vigorous tossing and forces slower, more mindful chewing to allow you time to register satiety. Coleslaw mix is another good one, and the basis of a lot of chopped salad kits, as it’s just green and red cabbage and shredded carrots. You can also save green while getting more greens out of one purchase by simply buying a head of cabbage, then cutting off what you need as you need it. Cabbage lasts longer whole, and you’d be surprised at how many cups just a few leaves can yield. Pre-shredded carrots are also inexpensive and will keep through many a round of salads.

Even simpler, make your salad bigger with voluminous greens. Spring mix, Romaine lettuce hearts, baby spinach, even chopped kale are great ways to amp up the nutritive value of your salad and help trick yourself into feeling like it’s a heavier, supersized entrée than it actually is. Because we eat first with our eyes, you might be surprised at how full you can feel when presented with a massive bowl of food to conquer.

Add protein and a carb

Salad kits are mostly roughage. You get a good dose of fats from the dressing, maybe from the included accents of nuts, seeds and cheese. You might get a few grams of carbs from toppings like croutons, pita slivers, tortilla strips or bagel chips. But ultimately, you need a good balance of all three macros — protein, carbohydrates and fat — for even the biggest bowl to be considered a great meal.

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Westend61 via Getty Images
This salad gets a big nutrition boost from tuna (protein) and bread (carbs).

“I feel much more satisfied with a salad if I can include some additional carbs,” McCoy said. “I might make some garlic bread or a small flatbread pizza.” On the lighter side, accompany it with a nice whole-grain roll or a couple slices of wheat toast for protein, fiber and carbs. If you went with a cabbage-based kit and have fiber squared away for the day, treat yourself to a croissant or brioche roll, even.

Most importantly, pick a protein to round things out. “So many people tell me that they feel hungry an hour after eating a salad. My question is always, ‘Did you add protein?’” McCoy said. “Because protein plays a huge role in satisfaction and fullness. Salad kits often tend to include some types like seeds, nuts or cheese, but for me — and most people — it’s not enough.”

How to choose a protein

Consider the salad’s theme

The first thing you need to do is think about the cultural or regional flavor profile the salad company had in mind when they created the blend. “Some of our most popular salad kits fuse flavors from around the world with new, out-of-the-box ingredients,” Taleyarkahn says. This gives you a direction to start riffing in.

It can be as easy as simple word association; the clues are often right in the flavor name. For example, Southwestern Cheddar, Mediterranean Crunch, Italian Balsamic ― these all allude to a very specific type of cuisine, which should lead your mind to a natural accompaniment.

Stop and think, what’s the first food item you picture when you go to that kind of restaurant? Which ingredients in that dish are your favorites? From here, you can let your imagination run wild with the characteristic flavors as your guide.

Generic Eastern-inspired flavors (think “Asian sesame”) pair well with teriyaki baked tofu or chicken. More regional ones (think a Thai-inspired salad kit) work well by marinating chicken in a satay seasoning or pork in lemongrass, and grilling it as a topper.

Mexican-inspired blends can be topped with black beans, adobo-dusted grilled chicken, popcorn shrimp, or taco-seasoned turkey or ground beef crumbles. Maybe even roasted peppers and onions for good measure to make it a warm salad. Add in a bit of seasoned rice, top with a dollop of creamy, naturally high-protein Fage in lieu of sour cream, and you have yourself a burrito bowl-salad hybrid set to satisfy.

Neutralize the sweet ingredients with the right protein

Some salad kits aim to make their blends more palatable by leaning hard on sugar. Onion, poppy seed, tangerine, maple bourbon or dijon, honey pecan, fruity vinaigrettes, and the inclusion of dried cranberries or cherries are dead giveaways that this salad kit is going to taste more like a treat. But it’s hard to feel like you’re having a “real” dinner if the only flavor profile your brain is registering is sweet, which is where it’s up to you to bring in the savory.

Many popular kits try to balance out the sweetness with salty bacon, but the addition of simple salt-and-peppered grilled chicken breast most effectively bridges the two sides of the spectrum.

For salads that include apple, pear or other fruits, think about what savory counterparts you’ve enjoyed with those fruits. Apple, for example, is a natural accompaniment to lean pork loin or chops, which you can broil or grill simply as your leading protein. Nuts are stellar in the fruit-forward salads, from salty cashews to heart-healthy toasted walnuts.

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Anna Kurzaeva via Getty Images
Offset bitter greens with a nice piece of omega-3 rich salmon.

Tone down brisk and bitter ingredients with fatty proteins

On the other side of that spectrum are chopped salad kits made with more mature and bitter greens. Those will be your blends with broccoli stalks, Brussels sprouts, radicchio, endives, kale and other harsher, tougher leaves. If you have a hard time with bitter flavors, counter them with some grilled shrimp, the natural sweet undertones of which will become more pronounced, and toss in some sweet cherry tomatoes.

Or steer into it. To enhance for flavor and digestion, boost a bitter salad with a bold and fatty protein like grilled or broiled salmon or steak. Taleyarkhan puts his chef’s hat back on for blends like these to add mozzarella pearls, prosciutto, pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes for Mediterranean and Italian-based kits. Easier still, grab a rotisserie chicken from your local supermarket deli or Costco, and carve that up for a mix-in. These tougher vegetables can handle a lot of tossing, and the juices from the chicken will make them even tastier and fuller-flavored. The richness of any of the above helps to take the edge off the vegetables.

Lentils are a good vegetarian option as well; their earthiness is a natural complement.

What are you waiting for?

It all goes back to sitting back and letting your gut instincts guide your stomach. The very first food you associate with any trigger word in the salad kit’s name is likely the best and right choice to turn your bag of greens into a dinner supreme.

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Before You Go

The Best Meal Prep Cookbooks
Vegan Meal Prep: A 5-Week Plan with 125 Ready-To-Go Recipes by Robin Asbell(01 of09)
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Prolific cookbook author Robin Asbell makes a good point in her introduction to this book: If you’ve ever eaten in a restaurant, you’ve eaten food that’s been prepped — it’s all been sliced, peeled, precooked and parcooked in advance, just waiting for your order to come in. Her point is that you can start eating like you’re at a restaurant every day, except you’ll be the chef in charge now. This all-vegan lineup of more than 125 recipes will be a handy reference for everyone from hesitant flexitarians to hardcore plant-based eaters. Check out lots of make-ahead items like wraps, smoothies and bowls, as well as plant-only “mac and cheese” with nutty crunch topping, tempeh banh mi and sweet potato chickpea cakes.

Get “Vegan Meal Prep: A 5-Week Plan with 125 Ready-To-Go Recipes” for $17.99.
(credit:Vegan Meal Prep)
The Ultimate Meal-Prep Cookbook: One Grocery List. A Week of Meals. No Waste. by America’s Test Kitchen(02 of09)
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When the venerable American’s Test Kitchen decides that a trend has enough staying power to warrant a new cookbook, then you know meal prepping is the real deal. You’ll find 25 weekly plans that promise to minimize shopping and kitchen time. Consider making fast work of vegetables and grains during what they call a weekend “power hour” or prepping bulk pantry ingredients in a “pantry power hour.” Recipes include meatballs and lemon orzo with mint and dill, teriyaki stir-fried beef with green beans, herb-poached salmon with cucumber-dill salad and sun-dried tomato and white bean soup with parmesan crisps.

Get “The Ultimate Meal-Prep Cookbook: One Grocery List. A Week of Meals. No Waste” for $17.99.
(credit:America's Test Kitchen)
Baby and Toddler Meal Prep Plan: Batch Cook a Week’s Nutritious Meals in Under 2 Hours by Keda Black(03 of09)
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The most visually inviting cookbook of the bunch, this book clearly has been written for stressed-out, sleep-deprived parents. The photography evokes a long, soothing Tasty video, all shot from above and all taking mise en place to new levels of organization. This cookbook thinks it all through for you, including shopping lists that have photos of each item, in case all you can manage is to bring the book to the market along with you and point. Black, a French food writer, offers up much more sophisticated choices than the strained beets of typical baby fare. This is more like “bébé” food, with recipes including baba ganoush, ratatouille, sea bream, lamb tagine and tuna niçoise.

Get “Baby and Toddler Meal Prep Plan” for $22.99.
(credit:Baby and Toddler Meal Prep Plan)
The Healthy Meal Prep Instant Pot Cookbook: No-Fuss Recipes for Nutritious, Ready-to-Go Meals by Carrie Forrest(04 of09)
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If you’ve already gone ahead and bought yourself that kitchen darling known by fans just as “the IP,” then you may have quickly run out of things to do with it after that first batch of chili. This book offers a number of recipe ideas that will allow you to batch prep in advance. There are tips for getting the most from the appliance, but there are no weekly plans, shopping lists or step-by-step instructions. That makes this book a good choice for someone who is experienced at prepping but new to the world of IP, as they’re sure to appreciate the super-speedy recipes for things like cooking a whole chicken, grains and beans in record time.

Get “The Healthy Meal Prep Instant Pot Cookbook” for $14.99.
(credit:The Healthy Meal Prep Instant Pot Cookbook)
Damn Delicious Meal Prep: 115 Easy Recipes for Low-Calorie, High-Energy Living by Chungah Rhee(05 of09)
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The woman behind the Damn Delicious blog found that meal prepping helped her get healthier, save time and lose weight — all while enjoying foods like pumpkin doughnuts, burrito bowls, breakfast croissant sandwiches and Mason jar lasagna. She offers up shopping lists and brief meal plans around the themes of kale, rainbow veggies, Mexican and Asian, and she swears by the way the built-in portion control of prepped meals can make it easier to eat more nutritiously. She also suggests getting friends in on your new meal planning commitment by setting up regular Sunday prep sessions as a group activity (she mentions mimosas).

Get “Damn Delicious Meal Prep” for $23.70.
(credit:Damn Delicious Meal Prep)
The Visual Guide to Easy Meal Prep: Save Time and Eat Healthy with over 75 Recipes by Erin Romeo(06 of09)
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Sharp may be the Meal Prep Queen, but Erin Romeo is known as @foodprepprincess on Instagram, so let the royal prep-jousting commence. This book offers up four different menu plans to follow: low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian and dairy-free. Recipes include chicken and bacon club wraps, falafel bowls and fish tacos. She touts meal planning as a way to regain hours in your day, eliminate the need to multitask as you prepare meals and to be more present with the people around you.

Get “The Visual Guide to Easy Meal Prep” for $7.26.
(credit:The Visual Guide To Easy Meal Prep)
The Everything Plant-Based Meal Prep Cookbook by Diane K. Smith(07 of09)
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This book promises to help you create a plant-based diet that fills all your nutritional needs, with ways to mix and match ingredients so that food waste is reduced. There’s a two-week meal plan that includes breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snack and desserts, and recipes include black bean meatloaf, sheet pan ratatouille with creamy polenta, jackfruit enchiladas with green sauce and avocado brownies.

Get “The Everything Plant-Based Meal Prep Cookbook” for $18.79.
(credit:The Everything Plant-Based Meal Prep Cookbook)
Meal Prep In An Instant by Becca Ludlum(08 of09)
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Beautifully designed and loaded with tons of helpful photos, this book would be a great first-step choice for someone with an Instant Pot, a desire to prep meals and the need for some gentle hand-holding. Written by the creator of the My Crazy Good Life blog, this informative book includes seven weekly meal plans, each with four primary recipes, three alternate recipes and one dessert. There are quick swaps for dairy-free and vegetarian options, too. Recipes include IP takes on carne asada street taco bowls, easy lava cake bites, southwest egg roll in a bowl and spicy white chicken chili.

Get Meal Prep In An Instant” for $9.79.
(credit:Meal Prep In An Instant)
Plant-Based Meal Prep: Simple, Make-ahead Recipes for Vegan, Gluten-free, Comfort Food by Stephanie Tornatore and Adam Bannon(09 of09)
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The wife-and-husband duo behind this book have a YouTube channel devoted to plant-based eating and meal prep, and they bring that experience to bear in this colorful, well-designed book. Not only are all the recipes vegan, they’re also gluten-free. There are options for soy-free, grain-free and nut-free variations throughout. Recipes include loaded baked potatoes, yellow fried rice, creamy pasta with broccoli, fettuccine alfredo and raw healing pesto.

Get “Plant-Based Meal Prep” for $16.84.
(credit:Plant-Based Meal Prep)

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