I wanted to go more vegetarian, for my lunches this week. Taco salads seemed a nice fresh option, so the only challenge was really how to package the parts of the salad. I didn’t want the lettuce getting soggy, and did want to be able to prep everything for the week, at the beginning of the week.
There is very little prep, and the packaging I attempted, seems to be working well. There is plenty of room to make this vegan or to add meat, so variations are easy to make.
Because there is a recall on romaine, I didn’t want to take a chance on that. For that reason, I used 1/2 spinach and 1/2 lemon arugula. That is working well, although I do need to cut it up more. Finely cut romaine would make this wonderful, although the spinach and arugula are laden with nutrients, so I won’t complain too much. Because everything is pretty much optional and can be substituted with any other suitable ingredients, I will not put optional by any ingredient.
This recipe was aimed at making 4 servings.
On to ingredients:
- Spinach – 4 cups
- Lemon Arugula – 4 cups
- Uncooked rice – 1 cup (I cook in rice cooker)
- Black beans – 1 cup
- Green bell pepper – 1/2 large pepper, diced
- Black Olives – 1/2 cup, sliced
- Avacado – 1/2 medium, diced
- Shredded Mexican cheese – 1/2 cup – 1 cup
- Salsa – 1/2 cup (desired heat)
- Sour cream – 1/2 cup (desired light, non-fat or regular)
- Tortilla chips – about 5-6
Steam rice, and prepare rest, while rice is cooking. Wash, cut and package the spinach and arugula into containers, which will be used as the salad bowl. In ziplock bags add about 2 tbsp of black beans, 1/4 of the diced green pepper, 1 tbsp of black olives, 1/4 of the avacado, and 1/4 of the cheese. Once the rice is cooked and cooled down, add 1/4 of the rice to each bag. In a small portion container, spoon about 2 tbsp of salsa, and then about 2 tbsp of sour cream on top of the salsa. Put about 5-6 tortilla chips in a ziplock.
Take 1 salad bowl, fixings bag, salsa and sour cream “dressing” containers, and chips bag, with you. Work, or play, as long as you can keep the items refrigerated they should be fine to go anywhere with you.
Simply dump the fixings bag into the lettuce bowl, and dump the salsa and sour cream on top. Crush the tortilla chips in their bag, and then dump on top. You now have an awesome salad, for lunch or dinner, on the go.
The prep is so easy, you’ll want to make this again and again!
Image Rotated 