For a healthy, light lunch during the week, try making a big salad. It only takes 5-10 minutes to prepare the night before…and it’ll save you $5-10 a day because you won’t have to buy your lunch. Also, when we’ve been eating particularly unhealthy for few days, we will make big salads for dinner.

Mixed greens, romaine, arugula, or spinach make a good base. Go for different colors of toppings and you’ll get the most nutritional value—tomatoes and yellow peppers are a good choice. You will also need some protein to keep you full—turkey, chicken or tuna and a handful of nuts, such as almonds or walnuts are good. For cheese, I usually add feta. If you’ve been buying Athenos feta from the grocery, you don’t know what you’re missing. Real Greek feta is sooo much better! Splurge one time and you’ll see what I mean. Look for something that says, “Made in Greece” or “Imported from Greece.” We currently have Kolios brand feta in our fridge.

If you play around with different toppings, combinations and dressings, your basic big salad won’t be boring. You can try other fun toppings, such as sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, dried cranberries, grapes, pistachio nuts, orange slices, strawberries, apples, sunflower seeds etc. I’m not much into broccoli, carrots or chickpeas on salads, but those are all good toppings, too. You can also vary your cheeses – try goat cheese, gorgonzola or shaved parmesan.

For dressings, you can keep jars of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar at work. Or, try mixing your own dressings. The store-bought dressings are OK, but even the low fat ones usually have a lot of sugar in them. I can’t remember the last time I used a store-bought dressing.

Instead we whip up a simple vinaigrette. For this you will need an acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar, an oil and some flavor. If you have a strongly flavored acid like balsamic you will want 1 part vinegar to 3 or 4 parts oil. For something lighter like lemon juice you can go up to 1 part lemon juice to 2 part oils. Add some salt and additional flavorings. We have been trying Spanish smoked pimento or crush garlic recently. If you want a thicker dressing, try adding a dab of Dijon mustard. The mustard will help bind everything together.

We bought these little containers at Container Store that are perfect for bringing a little dressing to work with you. They are leak proof, so just give the dressing a little shake and pour it on your big salad. Viola! Also, since you may not want to add some of your salad toppings to your salad until you’re ready to eat it (such as sundried tomatoes, tuna or anything that is oily or liquidy), these little containers are great for transporting additional salad toppings.