Use up all that produce with a fancy-ass chopped salad.

Ever wonder what the hell to do with your produce when leaving for a long weekend?

Me too.

Best Cases: Stir fry. Soup. Worst case scenario: compost.

I was racking my brain for a summer-friendly (read: no heat) solution to the “use up all your produce” conundrum and decided to make a huge salad.

I don’t like a lot of weird stuff in my salad — things that are different sizes and textures. But I always like a good chopped salad. I think because everything’s the same size and you get a bit of all the good stuff with every bite.

So, I googled “chopped salad method” and found the Pioneer Woman’s method, which I ended up using. Mixing stuff together, adding dressing, and chopping it all up.

There’s something about a chopped salad that turns salad from a side dish to a main dish (for even the heartiest of appetites — Mark loves these!).

My use-up-the-produce chopped salad had a couple of lettuces, eggs, olives, cucumbers, broccoli slaw, peppers, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and italian dressing. Maybe some carrots too. I can’t remember what all we had in the fridge, but it’s all in there.

I also needed to use up our bread, so I made some croutons.

Since I made this salad we’ve gotten in the habit of doing a big chopped salad once a week to finish off some of the older produce. Shopping for two people once a week makes it difficult to keep fresh produce, but it’s better on the budget so I’m sticking to that for now. Besides, if eating big-ass chopped salads every once in a while is the penalty I pay for shopping once a week? I think I can handle that.

What’s your favorite salad topping?