Easy Fresh Saladings

Prepare Your Saladings Ahead

Sam and I are always talking about tips and tricks to make your life easier while being prepared. While Sam’s enjoying a wonderful family vacation with friends, I’ll post my easy, fresh salad preparation which works great for one or two people, especially when you don’t eat it fast enough before it goes bad. But it would work for any family of any size.

This is for a simple tossed salad, but you can prepare most items ahead, making it easier to enjoy a fresh, crisp salad at any time without a lot of preparation. This process will allow you to enjoy fresh salads for 10-14 days.

A few key points:

• Keep your fridge colder – I keep mine close to the coldest setting. I feel it’s worth it if I’m trying to save on grocery trips.
• Always be sure to wash your veggies and dry them. I don’t have one of those spinners, so I just use a clean dish towel or paper towels.

Steps for a simple tossed salad:

Iceberg lettuce – take off outer leaves, rinse if needed, and dry. I usually cut the core out and then cut it in half. It makes it easy to grab a few leaves for a sandwich or to cut up for your salad. I wrap them in paper towels and place in a large plastic bag (or your favorite container).

Romaine Lettuce – remove the outer leaves, cut the core off the bottom, separate the leaves, rinse and dry. Line a 9×13 cake pan with a couple of paper towels. Place your leaves in and cover with a paper towel. Place the lid on the cake pan and store in the bottom of your fridge (bottom is colder).

Peppers – wash, remove stem and seeds, and cut in half or quarters (lengthwise). Be sure to dry them off with a paper towel. I use a 32 oz yogurt container. Place a piece of paper towel on the bottom, place a few pieces, add another piece of paper towel, and place the rest of the pepper. The paper towel helps to absorb the moisture.

Peppers can also be chopped up and stored in the same manner as above.

Mushrooms – in this case, I have button mushrooms. I wash them and dry them. Slice them if you like. Pack them in a container in the same fashion as the peppers above.

Green Onions – Wash and trim. Lightly dry them off. Then wrap loosely in a paper towel and place in a plastic bag.

Regular onions can be peeled, cut in halves or quarters, wrap pieces in aluminum foil, and place in a large yogurt container. They will keep if kept cold and will not smell up your fridge.

Tomatoes – the best approach I’ve had is to cut them to your liking and place them in sour cream or yogurt container using paper towel pieces on the bottom and the top. I’ve done this because quite often I can’t eat them fast enough.

Of course, you can search online and find dozens of suggestions to try. The above works well for me.

When I’m ready to create my salad, I just tear up some lettuce, add mushrooms, chop a bit of pepper and onion, feta cheese, top with tomatoes, and add the dressing of choice.

You can certainly add radishes, different mushrooms, meat, nuts and seeds, and any other items of choice. I like to add some of those nut and raisin mixes, croutons, and even fruit.

The point is to make it easy to enjoy a fresh salad and not throw anything away because it went bad!

Let me know any tips or tricks you might have on our Facebook page. Most of all – enjoy your fresh salad!

Warmly, Ellie