Salad

Salads are underrated and overpriced. The good news is you can make them in your very own kitchen for very little money. Why does a salad (that's supposedly fresh) at any fast food chain cost more than five bucks?!?!?! You can get a head of lettuce at the grocery store for a dollar, and that's enough lettuce for 2-3 good size salads. Also they are delicious...oh and you can make tons of different kinds of salads! They are the ultimate quick and easy meal. There's also a thousand variations like chicken salad, fruit salad, pasta salad, potato salad, mashed potato salad, egg salad, tuna salad, and I'm sure many more. I like to make a big batch of pasta salad on the weekend and enjoy it all week long (my two year old loves it too).

When I was younger my dad would make a massive (and I mean like the biggest bowl in your house) salad. They were delicious and always different. Lettuce (please note there are a ton of different types of lettuce alone!), kale, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, sprouts, beets, radishes, green beans, mushrooms, so much delicious. You can add shrimp, chicken, cheese; make a taco salad with some cooked ground beef or turkey and tortilla strips or go with a nice soy ginger chicken and at some wonton strips and edamame. Try a new homemade dressing (there are at least a thousand recipes online) and they are also really inexpensive to make! Salad is a great solution when you don't feel like cooking or are crunched for time. I like to chop the lettuce and other veggies when my boys are napping or content entertaining themselves for a few minutes and dress it lightly, then add some fun crunchy toppings just before it's time to eat.

We try to have salads once a night for dinner and it's always a dinner we look forward to. It's almost farmer market season here and I can't wait to find some new fun things to add to our salads! So go make some big delicious and healthy salads (of any kind) for dinner! What's your favorite kind of salad?