Put the dressing at the bottom

The trick to a non-soggy layered salad is building it upside down — dressing at the bottom, greens on top.

Think of it as inverted assembly. Pour the dressing in first, then pile on the stuff that can handle a soak: chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, shredded carrots, bell peppers. Those create a barrier. Then add a dry, dense layer like cabbage or quinoa, and save the tender greens for the very top, as far from the dressing as they can get.

You also need to dry your ingredients. Wet lettuce is what ruins salads — spinach it, pat it down, get it as dry as humanly possible before it goes in.

This works fine for a few hours. If you’re packing the night before, the barrier gets shaky, and the honest answer is a tiny separate dressing container. But for a morning pack, lunchtime eat, upside-down layering is all you need.

The dressing is the enemy of the leaf. Keep them apart until the last minute.