More than a year ago my ex-coworker/friend Bonnie Thompson suggested we have a salad potluck instead of a regular potluck at the office. Thanks Bonnie! We did it once and it was such a hit it became our Wednesday tradition. Everyone looked forward to it. It’s great – delicious, healthy, fun, social and inexpensive! It is a perfect recession era activity.
Here are some salad potluck tips:
- Basically everyone brings 1 ingredient for the salad bar. It is easier than a regular potluck because there is little or no prep. Someone brings a bag of spinach, someone else a can of artichokes, a bowl of strawberries, etc. You get the idea. It usually takes about 5 minutes to set up a salad bar.
- You can do it with as few as say 4 people but it gets really good when you have 8-20 people. It is perfect for offices or friends that want to get together and throw a cheap dinner party.
- It helps to get everyone to sign up to bring something so you don’t end up with eight people bringing tomatoes, say during tomato season.
- Make sure you have ratio of about 1 in 6 people bringing lettuce or spinach.
- Don’t forget you will need several salad dressings. If you don’t already have some ask people to sign up to bring or make them.
- Cold noodles or macaroni are a great salad add. Just add olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar & salt/pepper.
- If there is a big group get someone to bring dessert like cookies or a cake.
- One of the things I love about salad potlucks is that each one and each salad is different depending on what people brought and what was in season. Enjoy.