Eat Well, Spend Less

Illustration by Grant Hanna

How to Beat the Salad Bar Boondoggle

“Uh, that’ll be $21.79,” deadpans the kid at the cash register. “You want a bag?” Yeah, and a hand truck to roll it all back to the office. Salad bars have become perilous terrain for frugal foodies—and no one’s mastered the lunch-hour hustle better than Whole Foods, which has proved that $7.99 a pound can be deadly when combined with a suitcase-size container. To find the least we could pay while still getting full, we built three salads and recorded the lessons learned along the way.

THE HEAVY

2 boiled eggs
1 blob of gooey enchilada-like casserole
1 bone-in fried chicken breast
1 scoop of potato salad (veggies!)
6 grape tomatoes

WEIGHT: 1.81 lbs
PRICE: $14.46

REMARKS: Casseroles aren’t salad; they’re cheesy, sauce-shrouded sandbags installed by corporate accounting. // Bone-in and boneless meats are the same price here—go boneless. // Steps away from the bar, identical potato salad sells for $1.75 for two pounds. // Poverty. Guilt. Tummyache.

THE LIGHT

Red leaf lettuce (to the top)
2 tbsp. Italian dressing

WEIGHT: 0.14 lb.
PRICE: $1.12
REMARKS: Closest we’ve ever come to getting out of Whole Foods for a dollar.// Saved some coin by putting the dressing in a plastic condiment container, which doesn’t get weighed. // Still hungry.

THE JUST RIGHT

Mixed lettuce (halfway up)
Diced tomatoes
5 cucumber slices
3 Vidalia chicken medallions
2 chunks of feta
2 tbsp. ranch

WEIGHT: 0.67 lb.
PRICE: $5.35
REMARKS: Greens fill space that might have gone to spendy fare; diced tomatoes pack less water weight than cherries. // Whole Foods knows better than to make its pricey cheeses a free-for-all, but somehow feta made the cut. Load up! // Boneless protein from the hot bar turns a salad into a satisfying meal.

Photographs by iStockphoto (egg and single leaf); Betsy Halsey (salad)