Fourteen salads with enough in them to be lunch, not a side plate.
They are ordered by how well they travel. The grain and bean ones at the top can be dressed on Sunday and eaten on Wednesday. The last few want eating the day you make them.
Two are ours. The rest are from cooks we read.
One thing worth knowing before you start. Four of these list honey, which is not vegan, and we have said so on each one along with what to use instead.
1. Chickpea Tuna Salad
Ours, and the most popular recipe on the site. Mashed chickpeas with nori stirred through for the flavor of the sea.
The creaminess is tahini rather than mayonnaise, so it does not split or go oily in a lunchbox. Makes enough for three or four days of sandwiches.
2. Vegan Pearl Couscous Salad
Pearl couscous with asparagus, peas, radish and two cans of butter beans, so there is real food in it rather than leaves.
Twenty-five minutes and it makes eight servings at 403 calories each. The beans are what turn it from a side into a lunch.
Get the recipe from Nuts and Twigs.
3. Chickpea Couscous Salad
Smoked paprika and garlic through the couscous, chickpeas for weight, lemon and red wine vinegar to sharpen it.
Twenty minutes, serves four. The recipe offers maple syrup or honey. Take the maple.
Get the recipe from Sunglow Kitchen.
4. Wild Rice Salad
Wild rice, toasted pecans and dried cranberries with soy sauce and rice vinegar in the dressing.
An hour, but almost all of it is the rice simmering unattended. Serves six and it is better cold the next day, which is exactly what you want from a lunch.
Get the recipe from Foodess.
5. Chickpea Beet Salad
Also ours. Beets and chickpeas under a tahini dressing, earthy and a little sweet.
Beets stain everything they touch, so pack it in something you do not mind turning pink.
6. Vegan Egg Salad with Hearts of Palm
Not tofu and not chickpeas. Hearts of palm shred into flakes that hold their shape, and black salt does the eggy flavor.
Five minutes and it serves four. Half a cup of vegan mayonnaise carries it, so blended silken tofu if you would rather not.
Get the recipe from Strength and Sunshine.
7. Raw Brussels Sprouts Salad with Tahini
Shredded raw sprouts with carrot, mandarin segments and toasted sunflower seeds under a tahini dressing.
Sprouts are sturdy enough to be dressed hours ahead without wilting. Fifteen minutes, serves eight, 129 calories a portion.
Get the recipe from Champagne Tastes.
8. Kale, Brussels and Cranberry Salad
Kale and shredded sprouts with cranberries and a mustard dressing. Massaging the kale first is the step people skip and should not.
Twenty minutes and it makes eight. The dressing is built on honey, so swap in maple syrup and it becomes a maple mustard, which is no worse.
Get the recipe from Chew Out Loud.
9. BBQ Moroccan Eggplant Salad
Eggplant charred with harissa and cinnamon, then tossed with chickpeas and white wine vinegar.
Forty minutes, serves four. Warm or cold both work, and the flavor deepens overnight.
Get the recipe from Yum Vegan Lunch Ideas.
10. Thai Rice Noodle Salad
Rice noodles with red cabbage, carrot, peas, cashews and a lot of cilantro, with garlic and chili in the dressing.
Fifteen minutes for two. There are two tablespoons of honey in the dressing and no alternative offered, so use maple syrup.
Get the recipe from Cook Me Free.
11. Kimchi Cucumber Salad
Sliced cucumber and red onion with chopped kimchi, rice vinegar and sesame. Seven ingredients.
The hour it takes is almost entirely sitting in the fridge. Check the kimchi jar, because many contain fish sauce or shrimp paste.
Get the recipe from Flavorful Eats.
12. Coban Salata
The Turkish shepherd’s salad. Tomato, cucumber, onion and sweet green chili, chopped small, with lemon and salt.
Fifteen minutes and nothing cooked. It is meant to sit next to bread, so pack a piece with it.
Get the recipe from Chef’s Pencil.
13. Hemp Seed Salad
Tomato, cucumber and avocado with hemp seeds through it and a lemon and dill dressing.
Ten minutes for two. The avocado means this one is a today salad, not a Sunday one.
Get the recipe from In the Kitch.
14. Autumn Kale Salad with Pumpkin and Beet
Marinated kale with roasted pumpkin, roasted beet and pomegranate seeds. The most work on this list and the best looking.
Fifty minutes for one generous bowl at 541 calories. The dressing lists raw honey, and the recipe already offers maple or date syrup in its place.
Get the recipe from Cook Me Free.
What makes a salad survive until lunchtime
A salad only works as lunch if it can sit in a bag for four hours without collapsing.
That usually means a grain or a bean at the base and the dressing built on tahini rather than oil.
And, always, seek health consciously.
