Salad for dinner used to mean one thing: a sad afterthought of lettuce and a few cherry tomatoes, gone in five bites and forgotten an hour later. That’s not what you’ll find here. The salads in this collection are built the way I build every meal on this blog; with real protein, good fat, and enough thought put into the balance of textures and flavors that they hold their own as the main event, not a placeholder for one. Whether it’s warm roasted chicken over greens or a hearty grain-and-bean base like my Cowboy Caviar with Chicken, these are dinners that happen to be salads, not salads pretending to be dinner.
Below you’ll find 10 of my favorite Salads for Dinner, all sized for two and all weeknight-friendly, so there’s no dirtying five pans or hunting down a specialty ingredient list. Some lean warm and cozy, some are bright and best in the summer months, but every one of them is filling enough to close out your evening satisfied.
