Category: nuts

Not everyone loves vegetables. But almost everyone can get behind a good salad bar! We love the concept of salad bar for an easy dinner idea—something about calling it “salad bar” makes it more glamorous!

There are certain salad toppings that scream salad bar and make it even more special, like peas, hard-boiled eggs, or cottage cheese (or bacon bits!). Below, we’re sharing our favorite salad bar ideas so that you can recreate this simple weeknight dinner yourself.

Top salad bar ideas

The key to making a salad bar into a filling meal is to offer good protein options. If you’re making a vegetarian or vegan salad bar, use ingredients with plant based protein like beans, legumes, and nuts. Here are our top salad bar ideas for building your own at home (or jump to the recipe):

1. Greens: Romaine lettuce, spinach, and mixed baby greens.
2. Hard boiled eggs: With 6 grams of protein each, eggs are also one of the most nutrient-filled vegetarian protein sources around.
3. Chicken: Make a recipe of pan seared chicken and slice it into strips of cubes.
4. Cheese: Cheese is a great vegetarian protein: try shredded cheese, cheese cubes, or cottage cheese.
5. Legumes: Try green peas, cooked lentils (like brown lentils or French lentils), black-eyed peas, and beans, like garbanzo beans / chickpeas, black beans, lima beans, white beans, or kidney beans.
6. Whole grains: Try cooked quinoa, barley, farro, bulgur wheat, brown rice, or wild rice.
7. Nuts and seeds: Try almonds, cashews, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds.
8. Raw veggies: Chop raw vegetables for toppings like carrots, broccoli, green onions, cauliflower, red onion, cherry tomatoes, and bell peppers.
9. Bacon bits: Bacon bits are classic, as is cubed ham. (We eat mostly vegetarian so we use this coconut bacon).
10. Salad dressing: Try our list of top homemade salad dressing recipes.
11. Croutons: Top it all off with crunchy homemade croutons and your salad bar will be a hit.

Salad dressings for a salad bar

Another key to salad bar dinner is a good salad dressing! We have a whole collection of delicious homemade salad dressings that are perfect for salad bar ideas. Honestly, we like leaning into classic salad bar nostalgia with ideas like Thousand Island and Blue Cheese! Here are some of our favorite salad dressing recipes to use on salad bar night:

• Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Homemade Ranch Dressing (or Vegan Ranch)
• Caesar Dressing
• Blue Cheese Dressing
• Italian Dressing
• Thousand Island Dressing
• Greek Salad Dressing

Balsamic VinaigretteRanch DressingCaesar DressingThousand Island DressingItalian DressingBlue Cheese Dressing