Dressing goes on the side. Every time.

The trick to a non-soggy lunch salad is keeping the dressing away from the leaves until you’re about to eat.

This isn’t complicated. The problem is you’re dressing the salad at 7am and eating it at noon. That’s five hours for the vinaigrette to turn your arugula into a wet napkin. Stop doing that.

Easiest fix: pack the dressing in a tiny separate container. They sell little sauce pots for this, or just reuse a small jam jar. Pour when lunch hits.

If you’d rather carry one container, do the jar method. Dressing on the bottom, then the hard stuff (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, carrots), then greens on top. Shake or dump into a bowl when ready. The greens never touch the dressing until you’re eating.

One more thing: dry your greens before packing. Even with perfect dressing separation, wet lettuce goes limp. Pat it down.

Soggy salad is a choice, and you can stop making it.