The following ideas are approaches different restaurants have taken over time, that have worked for their concepts. We encourage you to read these ideas, and just maybe you know of an operator that can adapt them to his or her establishment.

Remember: The better you are equipped, the more salads you will sell!

Concept One: Salads By Design

This is one of the most popular salad concepts. Have a salad station where patrons choose from dozens of different items and have salads made fresh for them. Customers will love the evident freshness concept, and the setup will provide an upscale feel to any foodservice offering.

Serve a variety of lettuce types at your salad station (click here for our guide to different lettuces). In addition to standard salad mixes, you could also offer on a rotating basis smoked seafood (salmon, shrimp, scallops, oysters), grilled chicken and meat strips, marinated and fried tofu chunks, anchovies, capers, olives, snow peas, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, nuts and dried fruit (apricots, cherries).

Click here for inspiring salad bar ideas, and click here for tips on running a salad bar.

Concept Two: Hearty Salads

Some customers like hearty salads, and one of the most popular ones to serve is a fried Cajun chicken salad. Start by marinating chicken strips in buttermilk, then coat them with a flour/Cajun spice mixture and deep-fry them. When the chicken has cooled, cut it into bite-sized pieces, mix it with Ranch Dressing, red onion and tri-colored peppers, and serve it on top of chopped romaine lettuce.

Concept Three: Who Said Caesar is Dead?

Look at developing a new Caesar salad promotion that incorporates four of the biggest flavour trends in casual dining: barbecue, ranch, Cajun and Caesar.

To make the dressings, concentrate on keeping the creaminess of traditional Caesar dressing, incorporate other flavours into the Renée's Gourmet Caesar (like Cajun Spice, BBQ Spice), or cut the dressing with Ranch Dressing. All of the dressings have to have a bold flavor profile to satisfy customers' demands for full-flavoured foods.

Also, try to incorporate different textures into the salad varieties to provide good mouthfeel. A fried Cajun chicken salad recipe is a good example. It features chicken breast strips that are coated in a chili powder/cumin breading and then deep-fried.

Of course, traditional Caesar salad is served with croutons, but some customers get frustrated chasing the croutons around on the plates, so try making delicious oversized asiago cheese/peppercorn croutons that can be picked up and eaten by hand along with the salads.