Back in 2012, I came up with a great idea to make it even easier for our family to eat our vegetables. Many of you must have liked it as well, because it's been my most popular post ever since!
That great idea was How To Make a Salad Bar. In the past two years there has rarely been a time that our fridge did not have a well stocked salad bar along with a crisp, cold bowl of salad greens to go with it. Many times it has saved the day when I was in a hurry to pack up lunches but didn't have time to chop up vegetables. And there were some nights that my dinner plans just didn't work out, but some take-out food along with our salad bar could make a really nice meal!
My basic salad bar idea has stayed the same, but I have made a few minor changes over the last couple of years.
Changes I Made:
The first change is the containers I use. I no longer use the Snapware container with the Ziploc divided containers inside. And that's good, since Ziploc has recently discontinued them anyway!
The set I've been using for my Salad Bar for about a year now, is one by Rubbermaid - it's the Rubbermaid Lunch Blox Lunch Kit, along with a set of Mini Dippers by Easy Lunch Boxes.
Here's how I have it set up as our family salad bar:
I actually bought three sets of the Rubbermaid Lunch Blox - Entrée with trays
Inside one of the three containers I have 6 Mini Dippers from easylunchboxes.com. They are the absolute PERFECT size for all those little toppings that you like to sprinkle on top of your salad. These little containers hold about ¼ cup, which seems small, but actually has been just the right size for our family of four to seven ( depending on who's home for dinner). I refill it every 2 or 3 days, and that seems to be about right for keeping the salad contents nice and fresh.
The Rubbermaid Lunch Blox come with dividers inside that you can rearrange to fit whatever you're putting in your Salad Bar. I needed one more divider, so I used a rectangular silicone cup to hold the carrots.
Speaking of the carrots, one of the fun things about making your own Salad Bar is that you can deck it out for different holidays. In this week's Salad Bar, I used a Halloween Linzer cutter set to make cheese ghosts and carrot pumpkins (as shown in the pics above)
Products I Use:
You can find the containers I use for my Salad Bar, and all the other kitchen tools and bento supplies that I write about and recommend, on one convenient page of this site. I gave it a very creative name - Store. To locate the Rubbermaid Lunch Blox and the Mini Dippers, check the "Food Storage" box under Kitchen Tools.
Other Things I've Learned:
- Cucumbers - cut out the seeds when you chop them up to store in your Salad Bar. For some reason, leaving seeds exposed seems to make them spoil more quickly. The same goes for tomatoes. I always put whole grape tomatoes in my Salad Bar because diced tomatoes spoil too fast.
- Beans - I love all kinds of beans in salads! When they are in the same container with the other vegetables, however, something nasty happens. They don't mix well with the other toppings. Before too long, everything in the Salad Bar starts to smell bad. Yuck. Just keep the beans in a separate container of its own, and your salads with continue to be delicious! ( The Rubbermaid Lunch Blox - Entrée Kit
- Nuts and Cheese - My family loves to top their salads with these toppings, so in the beginning I loaded up my Salad Bar with extra nuts and cheese. I learned from experience that this was not the best idea though. Cheese will dry out after 2 or 3 days, and the nuts pick up moisture from the cheese, and they start to soften. That's why I use the Mini Dippers and just refill those toppings a little more often than the vegetables, and I keep the lids on the nut and cheese containers inside the main container.
- The best salad starts with very cold, very crisp lettuce. I have my own technique for preparing a big bowl of salad that will last all week.
You can read more about how I use my Salad Bar ( and see how it used to look) in my original post - How To Make a Salad Bar.
Want even MORE Info?
My salad bar idea has made it so easy and so fun to pack salads for myself and my family for lunch - which has led to me creating LOTS of different salad recipes, AND salad dressing recipes, and a bunch of other salad tips for healthy lunches. So, I put all that info together in one downloadable ebook, called Fresh Lunch Salads.
Please check it out by clicking this link:
Pam C.
I love this post. It has such great ideas for keeping salad makings at the ready. Easy access means they'll get eaten more often.
Elizabeth Cyrilla Shaw
Great idea for making a salad bar, simple even my boys could do it!
beneficialbento
It is a fun thing to have kids help with, and they can cut veggie shapes that fit the current season or holiday 🙂 I hope your family has fun with it!
Sarah Howard
Hi there..I love love love your Bento boxes, an your salad bar idea is awesome!! Do you have a Bento lunchbox book on the way? if you don't you should definitely publish one as your photos and ideas are great! I am an English girl living in Spain, and have just had a baby! Being home with baby I have spent many hours Googling all things healthy..including all the scary detergent stories (Pandoras box) air fresheners, food additives etc and everything else that is bad for us that I am slowly digging up (arrghhh!). I am cooking all of my baby food fresh, and spend HOURS in the kitchen at the moment..often not having time to eat myself - healthy foods! I have been pining for ages for a compartment box for my salad..but had no idea it coul dbe so varied and great ( I make the same salad over and over!) I found your website and have spent hours reading your posts and enjoying your ideas! I never even knew about "bento" and wow..pandas and star-shaped carrotts? wow!!! blew my mind did the world of the Japanese Bento!! 🙂 Anyway....I have "copied" your salad bar successfully for a month or so now...and I have a question for you....do you ever put liquid in your salad bar? My beets, and pickled gherkin peppers were not enjoying being out of their vinegar..so I put some in with them..but not sure if it has made the ambience too humid? Also my carrots were drying up and so I put a little water in there....(suffice to say, my seeds all went soft - but they would anyway after 10 days) but what is your experience with adding water / vinegar to any of your salad bar?
Keep up the great work and I wish you could make my future kiddie lunch boxes!! Love Sarah xx
beneficialbento
Wow, thank you Sarah! Congratulations on your new little one, isn't being a mother the best?
I do like to keep beets, canned beans, and other wet foods in my salad bar. I have some little containers with lids that fit inside the Rubbermaid containers that I use for my salad bar, so I just put lids on them. They are called Mini Dippers ( made by Easy Lunchboxes). I use those mainly to keep the nuts from getting soft. But I really like beets, so I just keep a separate larger container of beets in the fridge and I just pull it out when I grab my salad bowl and salad bar for meals.
It is quite a coincidence that you asked if I am writing any cookbooks - I am actually taking photos today for an upcoming book called Fresh Lunch Salads, and I will be making some more cookbooks in the near future, too! I have several ideas for gluten free cookbooks, allergy friendly bento lunch ideas for kids, and a few more. If only there were more hours in a day!
Working on a cookbook is such a time-consuming process, so I sat down to take a break. I read your nice comment, and it totally made my day - thank you!