This no-cook healthy salad recipe will be a favorite go-to when you don’t feel like being a chef at home and want a relaxed, low fuss meal on the road, in your hotel room when traveling to save money on room service.

When I have a full day of meetings back to back and don’t have time to go out for lunch, or need to do a working lunch during a brainstorming session, making a quick and easy healthy salad is a breeze.

The understated walking salad is full of vitamins and minerals that will keep your energy up while on-the-go.

The inspirational idea came from a co-worker who used to make walking tacos and sell them to raise money for our annual Christmas party.

The Walking Salad

All you need is a Starbucks grande (medium-sized) cup (a good reason to keep your cup from this morning’s coffee run), a freezer ziplock bag, your favorite greens, dried fruit (cranberries or blueberries).

Add your favorite nuts (cashews or almonds), sliced fruit or vegetable (apple or carrot), your favorite salad dressing, and travel bamboo utensils.

Add one to two tablespoons of salad dressing on the bottom, followed by dried fruit, nuts, sliced vegetable or fruit, and greens on top.

When it is time to eat, dump all the ingredients in the Starbucks cup in the freezer bag.

Roll the sides down and enjoy. Once done through eating, recycle the plastic cup and freezer bag or rinse, and reuse for another day.

Are Microgreens Healthy?

Try something new and replace your healthy salad at home greens with microgreens. Microgreens have higher vitamin, mineral and antioxidant levels than the same quantity of mature greens.

Microgreens can easily be integrated into daily meals like creating a salad mix of butter lettuce and microgreens and fruit or adding microgreens to a tuna or chicken salad sandwich.

Instead of going to the grocery store, I have found it more cost-effective to grow microgreens indoors.

The growing process is simple and easy.

All I do is add water to the seedling tray once, set the tray somewhere with low light, and in 7-10 days, I have something good to eat.

Once the microgreens are mature, I just go to my kitchen, cut some microgreens, make my favorite healthy salad dressing recipe creations to complement my fruit salad.

Why Not Grow Your Own Microgreens?

A $17-month subscription through Hamama gets me three seed quilts. The growing tray is extra. Every month I choose which three seeds I want and can pause monthly shipments.

Initially, I would receive an email when it was time to take the cover the protective cover off to let the seedlings break free and when it was time to harvest.

In order for the seedlings to germinate, they need some initial love to get started. If you live in a state with four seasons as I do, beware of humidity and cold weather.

Too much humidity in the air will cause the seedlings to get moldy.

In the spring, summer, and fall, the perfect light source for my seedlings is setting the tray of microgreens near a sunny windowsill.

Plant Your Love and Let it Grow

For the seedlings to grow, they need warmth. If a room is too cold (below 70 degrees Fahrenheit) the seeds will not germinate.

While the instructions that came with the seedling packs were easy to follow, I ran into a growing problem.

When an early arctic blast came through Minnesota for a week in November, my microgreens didn’t grow. The room I had been using was too cold.

I was fed the confidence and given a guarantee that there was no way I could kill my lovely microgreens.

In the past, I have killed cacti before because I loved too hard. My confidence dropped. What now?

I looked online for some solutions and found a couple of heating pads specifically used for growing microgreens indoors ranging from $20-30.

After doing some additional research, I found a simple hack by repurposing a heating pad to put under the tray. That solved the problem. A heating blanket can work as well.

When an early cold comes, I simply move the tray to another room.

Growing Microgreens Under LED Lights

Microgreens can grow under low light without soil. If there is a room that is used a lot like the kitchen, living room or bedroom, setting the tray of microgreens near a lamp or under a light source works just as well as buying one of those expensive LED lights.

News flash, you already have LED lights in your house!

As the microgreens grow, they will bend and reach out to the nearest light source. I found this out when I woke up in the morning.

A Himalayan lamp I left on overnight, to my surprise the microgreens changed directions and was reaching for the salt lamp.

When I do my summer and fall road trips, my microgreens travel with me and grow nicely in a hotel room while I go sightseeing.

If you are interested in growing your own greens, click here. Get 10% off by entering the code: SUPERGREENS at checkout.

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