We Make Salads For A Living — Here's The No. 1 Ordering Mistake We See People Make

With Sweetgreen, Chopt, Just Salad and others (the list goes on) popping up in every suburban strip mall and on every street corner, it’s safe to say we’re living in the golden age of the to-go salad. While it’s pretty delightful that we can get a flavorful salad full of high-quality, healthy ingredients with a few taps on an app, I have to admit that I have some issues with these salads.

While they all have what it takes to be delicious and nourishing, I often find that if I order them with dressing mixed in, the lettuce is soggy if I don’t eat it quickly enough. If I order the dressing on the side, it’s usually not enough. And even if I do order enough dressing, the greens still end up soggy sometimes.

To find a solution to this common problem, I decided to go straight to the sources: People who actually craft menus and make to-go salads for a living. Below is the top mistake they notice, plus their top tips for making your to-go salad taste great.

The No. 1 Mistake People Make When Ordering A To-Go Salad

DIYing your salad may seem like fun in the moment, but according to experts we spoke with, that’s actually a huge mistake that can quickly compromise taste and texture.

“The No. 1 mistake that customers make is when they customize their order to the point where it’s a totally different salad than what it originally was meant to be,” said Steve Choi , CEO of Health Nut, a Southern California-based health food chain that has an extensive salad menu. “Customers think that if they just get more of a certain ingredient that they like, and less of what they don’t like, the salad as a whole will be better.”

However, he said, the reality is that salads on a menu have been thoughtfully created to provide a specific