BORING Salad!

Leaves - baby spinach, watercress, rocket (arugula), little gem.
Protein - chicken, boiled egg, ham, fish, prawns, beans, cheese (cottage, grated cheddar, blue, feta)
Crunchies - bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, grated carrot, fennel.
Fancy stuff - artichokes, capers, olives, seeds.

Pick a few from each of those groups and you'll never be bored.

Why are you cutting down on sodium from olives and feta cheese?

Are you under specific physician's orders to do so or are you just trying to be "healthier?"

If the latter, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/health/panel-finds-no-benefit-in-sharply-restricting-sodium.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The low sodium diet seems to be going the way of the low fat diet.

I eat a lot of salad for lunch. I will have the "sweet salad" with lettuce, berries, ham or turkey and goat cheese with just a little balsamic vinegar. There's the "savory one" with lettuce, veggies, feta, leftover meat from dinner the night before. The spinach one with spinach, hard boiled eggs, chicken, craisins or strawberries. The taco one with lettuce, either roast pork or chicken, avocados, black beans, salsa and cheddar cheese.

Agree with the above posters on the salt thing but it's still good to mix things up. Boredom leads me astray,

You can make your own low sodium farmers cheese. It has a texture similar to goat cheese, but drier. Just almost boil milk that isn't ultra-pasteurized and add vinegar or lemon juice, wait about 15 mins, and strain. You can add your own herbs and stuff. Lots of recipes and directions will pop up if you google it.

http://mommyondemand.com/healthy-copycat-applebees-oriental-chicken-salad/

I Only made the dressing in the recipe. I poured it on a greek salad with pieces of baked chicken.

Measure 1 Tsp of olive oil,2 Tbl rice vinegar,add garlic,Italian seasoning,black pepper for dressing.
To your green salad,try shredded cabbage,carrot,zucchini,broccoli,cauliflower,green onion,hard boiled egg,green or other colored peppers,
Frozen green peas,beans of choice (drained), few nuts like walnuts or almonds.a shake of Parmesan.

I choose by what I have in the fridge.Love to use left over chicken.You can change it up lots
Of different ways. Pat in Ohio

lettuce+dried cranberries, goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, and balsamic vinagrette
spinach+mandarin oranges, diced red bell pepper, snow peas, slivered almonds, vinagrette of ginger, mango, lime, garlic a little oil
roast vegetable 'salad' roast your favorite veggies, the serve room temp. with a little olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning

I just added allrecipes.com app to my phone today. They give you nutrional information for every recipe. There are so many recipes on that app/site. Try one. Yummy.

Home made cheese suggestion:
Labne is a hung cheese made from yoghurt. Tip a tub of yoghurt into a muslin cloth (or a clean Chux cloth work well, too) and draw up the corners, like you're hanging plum pudding at Christmas. Suspend over a container in the refrigerator for a couple of days. (I put mine in a cloth, loop the cloth around a chopstick with a rubber band, place the chopstick across the top of a 2 litre plastic jug). The whey drains out over a couple of days - empty the jug every now and then. You are left with a soft, tasty cheese that is spreadable (on crackers/bread/veg sticks) or blob-able in your salad. Ramp up the flavour by mixing in crushed garlic, grated lemon rind, chopped herbs, minced chilli - mix your flavours into the yoghurt before you hang it, or fold through when you are about to eat it. Yum!

Our dinner salad last night (for two): 2 cups peppery rocket leaves, 4 diced roma tomatoes, one small red onion, halved and finely sliced, one red capsicum sliced, one lebanese cucumber diced, one cup cooked freekeh, 300g tofu with tempeh (this is in the dairy cabinet of my supermarket - way tastier than plain tofu. If you haven't tried it, I would recommend tempeh for taste and texture). Tossed this all together with 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil and 2 tablespoons light soy sauce. Should have finely sliced a couple of little red chilis in there too, but forgot to go out to the garden to pick them! It was sort of like Japanese tabbouli, or a crunchy, cold stir fry - definitely Asian-style flavour, which was great for a change.

I really like sweet salads. Chicken, apple chunks, cranberries, raisins, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds. Augh, so good. I got the idea from Jason's Deli (the Nutty salad) and just started making it on my own.

I don't use a dressing, but I'm sure that cranberry dressing I typically see on the grocery store shelf would be awesome if that's your thing.

Just out of curiosity: do you toss your dressing in or just pour it on top? I can't stand poured-on dressing...the first 1/3 of the salad is just blanketed with flavorful ooze, and then you end up eating plain greens for the last 1/3.

Pour a bit of dressing in the bottom of a bowl and mix the salad in it w/your hands until every leaf is just lightly coated. You'll probably use a lot less dressing this way as well.

Latest fave is Chicken Salad (made with a couple tablespoons of Greek yogurt instead of mayo, a little bit of diced onion, almond slivers and a couple diced up dried apricots. Served over your choice of greens (I prefer spinach or romaine) it is divine! No dressing needed.

If you really love your feta and olives as I do but want to reduce the salt simply store them in fresh water and change it every two days or so. The water will draw the excess salt from the cheese and olives but they will still taste pretty nice.

Avocado, mango, pine nuts, bocconcini cheese, and hard goats cheese is nice in a salad as well.

Bump for tastiness.