6 Creative Salads To Prepare For Lunch

Eating healthy for lunch can be a little boring and mundane after a while. The same boring salad can get a bit stale and deter you from continuing to eat healthy. Try these six creative and easy to prepare salads to spice up your lunch.

1. Taco Kale Salad

The taco kale salad is a perfect replacement to Taco Tuesday. This salad is made with a base of freshly washed kale leaves—topped with spicy jalapenos, grape tomatoes, sliced avocado, cheese, lime, cilantro and crunchy tortilla strips. If you’re missing a meaty texture, you can always add a cup of lean ground beef to the salad. This creative salad is easy and tasty to prepare for lunch.

2. Italian Chopped Salad with Chickpeas

This Italian chopped salad is made with fresh cuts of romaine lettuce and delicious Italian ingredients for a light lunch in Italy. The toppings for this creative salad include—roasted chickpeas, roasted red peppers, shredded cheese, slices of pepperoni and salami. This salad is extremely filling with all of the hearty ingredients and healthy chickpeas. Of course, you are free to make this salad all your own by adding different ingredients and toppings like black olives, artichokes or banana peppers.

3. Apple Kale Salad with Gorgonzola and Candied Pecans

This salad admittedly has a unique taste for someone with a strong palette. The fresh kale salad is mixed with fresh slices of red apples and sprinkled with clumps of salty gorgonzola cheese and candied pecans. This salad can be versatile with its ingredients. The apples can be green or Fiji style while the cheese can be either goat or blue cheese. As long as you like the combination, you can substitute any part of this salad. This creative salad recipe is perfect to prepare for lunch.

4. Fruit and Nut Spinach Salad

This fruit and nut spinach salad recipe is light and sweet—perfect to prepare for lunch. All you need to prepare this salad is a fresh bed of spinach lettuce, any two fruits that are in season—raspberries, blueberries, or strawberries and unsalted nuts that pair with your fruit choice whether its pecans, walnuts or peanuts. This salad can get a bit dry so pair a crumble of goat cheese for a creamy texture and a light vinaigrette. This creative salad is a salty sweet combination that will satisfy your craving and ease your mind with its healthy ingredients.

5. Spicy Cajun Chicken and Plantain Salad

This spicy Cajun chicken and plantain salad almost doesn’t even seem like you’re eating lettuce after all. This creative salad is made with fresh bib lettuce leaves, spicy Cajun marinated chicken, fried sweet plantains, slices of avocado, grape tomatoes and slices of green onion. The sweet plantains offer a delicious twist to a typical chicken salad. This meaty salad is both sweet and spicy perfect for your next lunch.

6. Kale and Chicken Pita Salad

Kale is by far the easiest type of lettuce to pair with a wide variety of toppings. Pair a fresh kale salad with lemon pepper marinated chicken, grape tomatoes, slices of radish and cucumbers and pieces of pita chips for crunch. This creative salad is fresh while also filling. If you’re a hummus fan you can always throw a couple globs of flavored hummus on the salad to pair well with the pita chips and chicken. This salad can also be made vegan by leaving out the chicken and instead using lemon pepper grilled tofu for protein.