With COVD-19 friendly grab-and-go options (you can order ahead online to ensure they have what you want), Choice Superfood is a smart choice for salads and organic juice. The Macho Taco Salad comes with walnut “taco meat,” bell pepper, red cabbage, cilantro, and chipotle cashew dressing while the Coconut “Bakon” Cobb offers avocado, marinated hearts of palm, and quinoa with ranch.

Recently-rebranded, with an updated store design among its new features, the chain with five locations in the San Diego area and another coming to Encinitas is know for menu staples like the Impossible Taco Salad, a customer favorite with savory plant-based chorizo and succotash drizzled with a smoky vegan chipotle ranch. The Mama Chen’s Chinese Chicken Salad is built on a base of crunchy Napa cabbage and kale slaw with bean sprouts, baby spinach, toasted cashews, and wontons in a miso mustard sesame dressing (it’s free to sub avocado for chicken). The current seasonal menu offers Thai flavors, including a Thai mango salad with shaved, roasted chicken breast, ramen noodles, Napa cabbage and kale slaw, sliced mango, honey roasted almonds, pickled daikon and carrots, scallions, Thai basil, mint, cilantro, lime, and fried shallots with Thai almond dressing.

With three locations in San Diego, this regional chain offers a large array of entrees, sandwiches, and of course salads. Grab a spot in line (in person or online) and grab favorites like Mixed Beets with roasted tomatoes, jicama, walnuts, help seeds, and goat cheese tossed in a preserved lemon vinaigrette.

This new restaurant, whose chef previously worked at an acclaimed Burmese restaurant in San Francisco, offers their version of Burmese Tea Leaf Salad. Tossed with a fermented green tea leaf dressing, the salad includes crisp romaine, fried yellow split peas, sesame and sunflower seeds, peanuts, tomatoes, jalapenos, and crushed dried shrimp. Or, try their delectable Samosa Salad with curried potato bites over cabbage, cucumber, mint, and cilantro with pea powder and a tart tamarind dressing.

If you work in an office near a Greenspot Salad Company you likely know the joy of seeing their boxes arrive for a catered lunch. Their never-boring salads include the Roasted Veggie with red peppers, grilled zucchini, and balsamic roasted mushroom and the Superfood with baby spinach, kale, broccoli, roasted sweet potato, quinoa, and avocado, tossed in a lemon dressing.

This University City shop offers customized chopped salads like the Green Goddess with avocado, edamame, quinoa, spiced pepitas in a green goddess dressing and the Miso Ginger Crunch with shredded carrots, scallions, bean sprouts and crunchy ramen noodles and optional add-ons like grilled chicken. 

This charming shop perched on La Jolla’s Pearl Street offers build your own salads or an extensive list of house-designed bowls from the Super Food salad with avocado, roasted sweet potatoes, pomegranates, goji berries, and quinoa to the Chinese Chop with snow peas, red pepper, mandarins, crunchy chow mein noodles in miso ginger dressing with optional proteins like turkey, tofu, and hard-boiled egg. 

Tucked into a business park on Ruffin Road, this cafe is for more than just office workers. For 20-plus years the Nasser family has served fast and fresh meals, including a long list of salads. Grab a seat on their open-air patio and enjoy leafy greens like the Fatuous with cucumbers, sumac and proteins such as chicken, mixed beans, or tofu. Daily specials bring out treats like roasted beets with candied walnuts, sun dried tomatoes and arugula.

This East County establishment offers an organic menu of sandwiches, platters, and of course salads. Choose a base salad like the Guacamole Greens with corn, black beans, avocado, tomatoes, grilled onions, white cheddar or vegan cheese, and crispy tortilla strips in a lime cilantro vinaigrette and enjoy as-is or with an added protein.

Mission Valley’s Grater Greens offers build-your-own salads or choose one of their featured creations. Choices include the Kale Couscous Salad with cabbage, couscous pilaf, avocado, roasted cherry tomatoes, sweet potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and stewed black beans in a champagne vinaigrette and the Apple Cranberry with spinach, shaved red onion, and candied pecans in an apple cider vinaigrette.

Loving Hut lost no abundance when translating their Heavenly Salad to takeout. The clear clam shell bursts with shredded cabbage, carrots, onions, and bell pepper with thin strips of fried tofu and soy protein, a handful of Vietnamese mints (like pepper and fish mint), and crushed peanuts with tamarind-spiced sweet and sour dressing. 

Nothing makes it to Tribute Pizza’s menu without being perfect. Every pizza, every appetizer, and every salad deserves individual acclaim. The seemingly—simple Elaine Benes Little Big Salad, with heirloom tomatoes, veggies, and marinated garbanzo beans in a bright red wine vinaigrette, reveals why its namesake character made a scene over these greens. The “betrayal of caesar by the coward brutus, or, et tu brute” has been a favorite from the start with fancy kale (or grilled romaine depending on what the season gives) spotted with Calabrian chilies and a garlicky dressing finished with wood-fired focaccia croutons.

Seasonally driven, the kitchen at Donna Jean plays with vegetables throughout the vegan menu. Featured salads include a Caesar with sea beans, romaine, croutons, and Scratch House vegan parmesan.

Café Gratitude San Diego’s ‘I AM Enchanting’ is the ideal dish for a healthy start to the new year. It is a delicious array of mustard marinated kale with tarragon, dill, avocado cream, an maple-toasted seeds. Other faves include the Kale and Sea Vegetable salad and Little Gems Caesar.

At this longstanding downtown staple, no meal is complete without a colorful scoop of the house Cabbage Salad. Chunky green and red cabbage comes laced with shaved carrots and curls of white onions steeped in a light marinate.