Saving Time Preparing Salads

When chopping vegetables for salad, always cut extra and store them in zipper-lock plastic bags in the refrigerator. Next time you make a salad, they'll be ready to go. Whenever you can, buy precut vegetables, such as lettuce and lettuce mixes, shredded carrots, shredded or chopped cabbage, coleslaw mix, broccoli slaw, broccoli florets, celery sticks, cauliflower florets, and sliced mushrooms. You can also buy pre-washed greens for salads, such as arugula, baby lettuces, baby spinach, and whole leaf spinach. Pre-washed greens can be tossed into a salad as is; they usually need no trimming or washing, saving loads of preparation time.

Broccoli and cauliflower are often too fibrous and strong-tasting to add to salads raw. Many recipes call for them to be blanched first. Save yourself some time and use frozen and thawed vegetables instead. Or try bagged broccoli slaw from the supermarket. This form of shredded broccoli works well with any coleslaw dressing or tossed into salads.

As for peas, instead of simmering them before adding to salad, use frozen peas and run them under cold water for 1 minute to thaw. Whenever there is any leftover salads like meat, fish, pasta, and bean salads, they could be made into great sandwich fillings. Split a pita pocket, stuff with the leftover salad, and garnish with fresh lettuce and chopped tomato.