The £13 high street salad is everywhere – can you make it for meal deal prices?
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When did we normalise £13 takeaway salads?
Perhaps we should have seen it coming – the price of eating out has risen by about a third since 2021, external. Last year Pret launched a new range of takeaway lunches, with salads costing up to £12.95. The company said its salad sales were growing three times faster than sandwiches, highlighting a growing appetite for healthy meal options.
Still, £65 a week is a lot of green for your greens.
So we found five salad recipes inspired by premium takeaway versions that will make three days of meal prep salads for £4 –£5 a portion. We also include plenty of tips for elevating cheap, everyday ingredients you may already have in, and options to flex for your taste.
1. The Caesar one
The original Caesar salad was made fresh at the table, but that's not going to work for office lunches. Prep the elements, store them separately, then it all comes together in moments.
How to make it easy and elevated
Chunks of washed and dried Cos or Little Gem lettuce will stay fresh in a sealed bag in the fridge. The dressing can likewise be made and kept in a jar.
Griddling a chicken breast takes less time and cooks more evenly if you butterfly it. Keep in the fridge, or cook a big batch, slice and freeze it for all kinds of meals.
For bargain croutons, toast two slices of bread and rub a halved garlic clove over the toast. Rip it into pieces, drizzle with the anchovy oil, and toast again in the air fryer or oven for 4 minutes. They'll stay crunchy in an airtight container.
Pack the lettuce, chicken and any extra veg the night before. For the aesthetic, use a peeler to make wafty shards of Parmesan. Croutons and dressing travel separately.
Ramp up the fibre by switching in raw kale, carrot ribbons or cooked sweet potatoes (see below). Carb load by making it a pasta salad. Switch out the chicken for cooked tofu or crispy chickpeas.
2. The Greek-ish one
From supermarket to upmarket, there's almost always a Greek-style salad on offer. They're often bulked out with leaves though, so you're likely to get a green salad with some crumbs of feta.
Our hacks to make it work
Keep cucumber and peppers chunky and use cherry tomatoes. It will be fine packed up the night before, but keep the Greek dressing separate.
Pickle thinly sliced onions in lemon juice with a pinch of salt to soften the flavour and make them a vibrant pink.
Add a side box of crispy pitta chips. They cost buttons but add crunch and carbs.
Keep the feta in large pieces to break up when you eat, and fancy it up with a sprinkle of dried oregano.
The feta brine hack (thanks to Elly Curshen, external) makes feta firmer (more like premium varieties), and it keeps for ages. Dissolve 1 tsp of salt in 125ml of cold water and store your feta submerged in this.
We like to bulk up the salad with a ready-made grain and lentil mix in the bottom of the lunchbox for extra carbs and plant protein.
3. The green goddess one
Green goddess salad recipe | Save to My Food now
She's having a moment, the green goddess. For best value, go all in and make a big batch of Green goddess dressing, rather than having half packets of herbs turning to soup in the fridge. It uses up the extra anchovies from the Caesar dressing, too.
How to make the most of that dressing
The dressing can be made with various soft herbs, so use what you like most. Shift the balance of yoghurt and mayo for a lighter or richer dressing.
Georgina Hayden's version with baby new potatoes, radishes, sugar snap peas and spring onion means nothing wilting or browning.
If you're using the traditional avo, pack a half, still in its skin, and scoop out at lunch. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the cut surface to stave off browning.
Use the dressing on a slaw and as a marinade for cooked chicken, as in Sophie Gastman's grain bowl.
That cooked chicken from the freezer would fit in here, as would any cooked fish. Butter beans are a great plant-based protein add-on.
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4. The spicy tofu one
Lots of high street salads feature slaws using cheap, sturdy veg like cabbage, carrots and other roots. Take a leaf (sorry) out of their book and combine a slaw with ready cooked grains and a protein. While tofu might be bland on its own, it can take on big flavours and is an easy way to boost the protein in any salad.
Our hacks for flavourmaxxing
Get a head start with smoked tofu. Give it a 15-minute marinade in maple and soy before pan-frying or air-frying it to give it chew.
Stir together an instant drizzle from salty, sweet, sour and spicy ingredients you have in. Rachel Phipps uses soy, maple, rice vinegar and gochujang (recipe above). But you can riff on it.
Switch out gochujang for chipotle, and you're 80% of the way to a salad version of Rhi Melvin's tofu tacos. Maybe add those pickled onions and an avo half too.
A slaw dressing can be as simple as mayo, vinegar, salt and sugar. Build in herbs, more spicy sauce, some pickle juice and suddenly things are livening up.
Grain pouches are handy, although cooking your own is cheaper long-term, and you can freeze cooked grains, if you're dedicated. These types of salads can be stored all boxed up, no last minute prep.
5. The cooked veg one
Cooked veg stops salads from being too, well, salady. They're filling, have a sweeter flavour and a softer texture. Niçoise salad with cooked potatoes, beans, tuna and egg, all countered by a sharp vinaigrette is a good example. But it's not the only one.
How to get more cooked veg into your salads
Roasted peppers come in jars already cooked and peeled. See also pickled jalapeños.
You might see recipes calling for blanched veg. This means it's boiled in salted water for a minute or two, drained and then cooled quickly in iced water. Broccoli, green beans, edamame, peas, or asparagus are all candidates.
Throw some tinned or frozen sweetcorn in a dry frying pan and cook until it chars and blackens a bit for extra flavour and texture. So easy.
Sweet potatoes pop up in upmarket salad menus for good reason – they're cheap, colourful and flexible. Or batch roast Med veg like courgettes, aubergine, peppers, red onion. Endlessly useful.
Toast nuts and seeds in a dry frying pan until golden and fragrant, stirring or shaking them often, and when they cool down you have instant, nutritious crunch to add to all your salads. Flavour them with chilli flakes and honey and you're smashing the swicy trend.
Pair these cooked vegetables with crisp lettuce or peppery rocket. You can add in the pitta chips, feta, cooked chicken… In fact any of the dressings and all of the salads above can take some cooked veg.
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