I am often asked about my salad bar in the fridge. It’s SO EASY to build, makes food prep a snap, and allows us to have healthy choices for dinner that require NO thinking.
That’s the main reason I make one every week.
I just want our healthy food to be EASY to execute. The less time I have to deal with cooking, cleaning, and deciding what to eat the more time I get to actually talk and get to know my kid and husband! I don’t want to spend my days “doing mom shit” and feeling wore out and tired from life.
I look at my life and find areas I can make simpler. I let myself create time to just be with the people I love most.
The time I spend pulling together the salad bar is minimal.
There’s a trade, though. Salads most nights can seem boring to a lot of people.
I don’t think of it as boring. I think about how I’m not bitching my pants don’t fit or that I have to do the mom grind every night.
I gladly trade a salad every night in exchange for the mental BS of “what are we going to eat.”
I don’t miss the tightness in my jeans from too many nights of “f-it let’s just order pizza” moments because I was too tired or not in the mood to make a dinner decision.
Now you know why that salad bar is one of the BEST decisions I make every week. Want my template? Here you go! Everything on this list gets opened, washed, cooked, and stored in glass. Glass keeps things fresh LONGER! I use full fat dressings. Green Goddess from Trader Joe’s is my all-time favorite.
2-3 avocados or guacamole packs
1-2 cans of beans of choice (usually black or chic)
cheese
Pull apart a rotisserie chicken or turkey for meat (1 per adult LOL)
6-12 HB eggs depending on if my Logan is also having salad
chopped celery (1 bunch)
chopped mushrooms (1 container)
cherry tomatoes
large cucumber (1)
1 salad bag per 2 adults per day (Taylor Farms and Dole are our favorites because of the crunch of the cabbage and such in those mixes)
colored peppers (2)