Salad Bag Bandwagon

Friends, I have jumped on another bandwagon to save time during the busy work week.  I’ll be honest because I’m not too sure if it saves money but the convenience and time saving trade-off is totally worth it (although I usually find them on sale).  I now buy 3 bagged salads when I grocery shop for the week.  I buy one salad to have at home for dinners and then I buy two salads for my lunches, salad in a jar.

Last week I bought a Pear Gorgonzola Mixed Green Salad for home and a Fiesta (Mexican) Salad Kit with a bag of shredded iceberg to top it off with, for my lunches.  (Note: I don’t normally just buy shredded iceberg, I try to buy something with a bit more nutrition but this was all they had this week).The Pear Gorgonzola salad comes with a yummy dressing, nuts and fruit and I can get four side salads out of it so it takes care of two dinner veggies, and there is no way my hubby is eating salad with dinner every night so I have to switch the veggies up anyway.

Bagged salads have also shaved even more time off my lunch prep for the week!  I am lazy and if I don’t have something I can grab and take with me every morning, I would be inhaling cheeseburgers every day.  So on Sunday I whip up 5 delicious salads in a jar in 10 minutes.  Why does it even take 10 minutes?  Because I have to strip the meat off the rotisserie chicken.  And in doing so I am not only getting meat for my lunches, I am also getting enough cooked chicken for at least one dinner.  We make quesadillas, pasta, whatever you can throw chicken in, and it’s already cooked!

So for my lunch salads, I divide the dressing from the kit evenly between the jars (adding a bit more if needed from our home stash), add ¾ cup of cooked chicken, sprinkle whatever cheese or nuts or other fixings that are included in the kit on top of the chicken, and then top with the actual salad mix.  I pack it all down and there is usually another 1.5” which I stuff with the extra salad I bought.  And I usually have a bit of leftovers from the third bag and use them up at some point during the week.

So to sum it up, I save time and we get to eat yummy salads.  Sounds like a win-win to me!

What are your time saving tips?