Salads are easy to throw together, and they don’t need to be complicated.
If you’re working at home, you need your greens.
For a basic salad, get some mixed greens at the store. If you’re feeling ambitious, buy a head of lettuce and rip the leaves off and wash them. But, with either route, the process of making a salad is literally washing the greens, and then dumping them onto a plate. If you’re feeling really ambitious, get an avocado and slice it up*. Cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, snow peas, carrots, or celery all add some variety, flavor, or texture.
Homemade dressing can also be pretty simple. A great basic dressing is a mix of equal parts extra virgin olive oil and seasoned (or sweetened) rice wine vinegar.
Another straightforward homemade dressing is equal parts extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with a spoonful of stoneground mustard and some cracked pepper. This dressing goes especially well with sliced apple and/or dried cranberries.
For salad dressing containers, I use old jam jars. They’re a great size, and you can seal them up and mix your dressing inside them.
With the steps laid out here, you can prepare a basic salad in around 5-10 minutes.
* If you only use some of your avocado, squeeze lemon juice on the part that’s remaining and store it in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. The lemon juice prevents the avocado from turning brown.