Hold the Boring Bread

Surveys show that there remains a common struggle among us—a struggle to consume the recommended daily amount of vegetables needed for great health. Beyond trying tricks such as sneaking zucchini into chocolate muffins or spiking morning oatmeal with canned pumpkin to bolster your intake, swap out bread for greens by turning your sandwiches into salads!

Reincarnating time-honoured sandwiches—such as turkey and cheese and even ye olde peanut butter and jelly—into salads is a tasty and fun way to ramp up your intake of vegetables along with their arsenal of age-avenging vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Not to mention that it can breathe new life into a lunch or dinner routine that has become stale, so to speak.

No bologna, these salads inspired by classic sandwiches will guarantee that eating greens never tasted so good.

In a pickle

Use extras of the pickled onion to instantly turn sandwiches, grain salads, and tacos from ho-hum to seriously yum.

Recipes

• Tuna Salad
• Turkey and Cheese Salad
• PB&J Salad
• BLT Salad
• Grilled Cheese Salad

Green giants

Greens and their impressive nutritional resumes are the backbones of sandwiches morphed into salads.

Where to buy

These days, grocers stock a wider array of excellent tender salad greens such as baby kale and arugula. Of course, you can also find an economical green bounty at local farmers’ markets. But you’ll want to store them properly once home to avoid the sad situation of opening a bag a few days later only to find a chemistry experiment.

How to store

Here’s the best way to store salad greens to prolong their freshness and avoid having them degrade into a slimy mess. Line a glass storage container with paper towels.Add your greens, but make sure they’re not jam-packed in the container. This prevents the greens from getting crushed, which can occur in bags.

Cover with another layer of paper towels before locking down the lid. The paper towels serve to soak up excess moisture that hastens wilting.