I usually make 5 virtually identical salads on Monday morning for lunches that week. Here are the ingredients:
1 small plastic box of baby spinach leaves
1 container of grape or cherry tomatoes
1 bag of small peeled finger-sized carrots
1 package of dried cherry or craisens
1 pint of fresh mushrooms.
hard-boiled eggs or string cheese (leave in shell or plastic wrap until lunchtime)
I don't wash any of the ingredients. I simply line up 5 black plastic short bowls from Chinese take-out. Put in spinach leaves, tomatoes, carrots, dried fruit and an egg or cheese. Slice enough mushrooms for the 5 lunches an divide up among the 5 containers. Seal with the plastic lids. It's a colorful lunch with the dark green, bright red, bright orange, yellow and white all together.
When eating be sure to have croutons and salad dressing handy.
It turns out that the ingredients (except mushrooms) last a few weeks in the fridge, so one can buy larger amounts. I like the fact that there is virtually no cooking and no prep time needed (about 3 minutes to make 5 lunches if the eggs have already been boiled). So if I don't feel like a salad on Tuesday, I just leave the container in the fridge.
The salad is good by itself, but could be supplemented with yogurt (uh-oh
) or a leftover slice of pizza. But I'll warn you: You will get lots of comments about eating healthy if people see you with this lunch.