What do you put in your salads?

I like beets, radishes, berries, cucumber, carrots, cabbage, jicama, corn, black beans, garbanzo beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and red onions, marinated tofu, and pickles (kinda weird, but good).

Some weeks it depends on what came in the organic farm box that week, but spinach and arugula are usually the base greens, then I go one of two ways, either sweet or savory.
Sweet? Almonds, orange or mandarin slices, cucumbers, carrots, green onions, maybe garbanzo beans or red beans, maybe a little bit of goat cheese.
Another 'sweet' fav is to chop up an apple or pear and braise it really fast in basalmic vinegar instead of the citrus.

Savory? Tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, snap peas, garbanzo or white beans, celery, red onion, yellow or red bell pepper, maybe a dash of feta. I'm big on nuts in the salads, like walnuts or almond slices, but my husband is usually really close to his calorie goal, so lately I skip it.

I make my own poppyseed dressing from nonfat plain yogurt, lemon juice, cider vinegar, poppy & celery seeds, or we just have a little basalmic on them. (I keep about five varieties of basalmic in the house at any given time.)

taco salads are my fave or.... greens lemon garlic tessemaes dressing with cranberries candied pecans and goat cheese.

whatever i want....

baby spinach is almost always my base

sometimes i do fruits and poppyseed or rasp.vinaigrette
sometimes i do a chef salad
sometimes i do a tex mex style salad
sometimes i do grilled chicken
sometimes i do taco
sometimes i do scallops

just depends on what im feeling like and what i have readily on hand ...

I like some sort of protein...for example sliced chicken breast or sliced steak. I also love fruit in my tossed salads...black berries are especially nice. I also put fresh herbs if I have any on hand--mint, basil, dill or cilantro.

A mixture of baby spinach, romaine and/or iceberg lettuce, celery, grated carrot, are the core. Add-ins are dependent on mood, what's in the house and could be any one or a combination of: chick peas or black beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, hard boiled egg, tuna fish, anchovies, left over chicken breast, cheese cubes, sunflower seeds, chili, roasted beets, cut up fresh or roasted broccoli or cauliflower, radishes, olives, pepperchinis, pears and dried cranberries or fresh blueberries (with just spinach) ... pretty much anything that will round it out. Dressing is always just olive oil and cider vinegar or lemon juice and a sprinkling of black pepper. Sometimes I add salt, minced dill, parsley or mint. Very rarely I'll toast a piece of bread and break that up into the salad as a sort of plain crouton, I like rye or sourdough bread the best for this purpose.

Basically, I make certain every salad has some protein and or nuts in it and vegetables equal to 3 servings. That would be, like 2-3 cups greens and 1 cup cut up raw veggies or 1/2 cup roasted veggies. By the time the meat is added in; it's a very filling bowl. Got to have the protein and oil or will be hungry too soon after eating it though.

I usually prep my veggies on Sunday for the week, put them into zip lock bags in the crisper and just pull out whatever I want and the add-ins as I make the salad. I don't work any longer, but when I did, I never dressed the salad or combined the protein, nuts, bread with the veggies until it was time to eat. Everything was in it's own plastic pouch/container. I kept a really nice big bowl in my desk drawer to mix the salad in, and a real knife and fork.

PS ... and I was thinner in the days I had a big salad for lunch almost every day.