Not your Average Salads

I'm someone who easily gets bored by the typical salad and need new recipes to change it up. All the following are great meal preps for your week and are a yummy, crunchy twist to your average salad.

Asian Slaw with Ginger-Peanut Dressing from once upon a chef 

This colorful salad is packed with crunch and is the perfect savory blend for a busy day lunch. 

Balsamic Grilled Chicken and Arugula Salad from Girl on Bloor

Chicken gives this meal plenty of protein mixed with the sweet potatoes. I used a balsamic vinegarette instead of the recipe's dressing suggestion and it turned out great. Another keeper for your meal prep pocket!

Healthy Quinoa Salad from Peas and Crayons

Confession part - I had never tried quinoa until this recipe. It blended very nicely with these ingredients and I truly enjoyed it. Also - this salad was yummy enough without the dressing!

Mexican Kale Salad from ifoodreal

With tortilla chips, this recipe is a great veggie taco salad. I loved this one without the jalapeno peppers (I'm working on my spice tolerance).

Lemon Parmesan Kale Salad from layers of happiness

With such basic ingredients, I was so happy to throw this recipe together. I omitted the shallots, dijon mustard, and currants. The kale and romaine lettuce mix is a great way to mix your greens if you're not the fondest of kale alone. Chicken would be a great add to this recipe.

Crunchy Thai Peanut & Quinoa Salad from Cookie and Kate

Purple cabbage pumps color and flavor into this crunchy salad. Also - it's vegan! I like to mix up vegan, whole 30, paleo, keto, etc. recipes to try something new each week and keep it healthy.

I'm not a fan of scaling down a recipe if that means I have extra ingredients. For this one, I used an entire purple cabbage, a bag of sugar snap peas, a set of green onions, and guestimated the rest of my ingredients. Instead of 4 servings, I had about 10-12, which I was happy with.

Nutty Harvest Honeycrisp Kale Salad from How Sweet Eats

I could eat this one year round - honestly. The apples and pecans give this salad a sweet flavor that offsets the kale. Instead of the vinaigrette listed, I used my balsamic vinaigrette, so either will work for you. This recipe takes a bit more time with roasting the pepitas and pecans, but it will give your everyday salad that oomph.

Roasted Chickpea Kale Salad with Tahini Dressing from eat yourself skinny

Chili powder gives this kale salad the flavor it needs -  with such simple ingredients, this recipe would be great with everyday ingredients + kale. I keep sunflower and pumpkin seeds in a jar and add to my side salads, which adds to the following recipe. Chickpeas have some protein but grilled chicken would be an additional suggestion for this one.

Strawberry Kale Salad from Peas and Crayons

Summertime has arrived! Strawberries and walnuts will brighten your kale salad in this recipe with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. I omitted the feta and asparagus spears and found this one a great find! If you decide to increase the portions, I would store the strawberries in a separate container.

Enjoy some gooood eats and let me know your thoughts below!