Guide

Salad Meal Prep Guide

With a little planning, salads can be the easiest meal-prep lunch you make — as long as you build them to last. The secret is knowing which components hold up, layering them so nothing turns soggy, and keeping delicate elements separate until serving. This guide covers exactly how to prep a week of salads that still taste fresh on day five.

Choose salads that last

Sturdy salads survive the fridge; delicate ones wilt. Grain and pasta salads, chopped vegetable salads, and bean salads all improve after a day in their dressing. Start with our Mediterranean pasta salad, farro vegetable salad, and chickpea feta salad.

Layer jars from the bottom up

For salads in a jar, dressing goes on the bottom, then hard vegetables, then grains or protein, then soft ingredients, with leaves packed on top away from the dressing. When you are ready to eat, shake and tip into a bowl — nothing goes soggy.

Keep components separate

Store dressing, crunchy toppings, and delicate items like avocado or nuts separately, and combine at serving time. This keeps croutons crunchy and greens crisp all week.

Batch the building blocks

Cook a big batch of grains, roast a tray of vegetables, and boil some eggs at the start of the week, as in our brown rice power bowl. With the pieces ready, assembling a fresh salad takes two minutes. For storage tips, see how to keep salad fresh.

Keep exploringPut these ideas to work with our full collection of salad recipes, or browse the other MakeSalads guides.