Your salad gets soggy because of the dressing, not the lettuce

The trick to a crisp lunch salad is keeping the dressing off until you’re ready to eat. That’s 90% of the battle. The other 10% is making sure your greens are dry before they go in the box.

Here’s the stupid-simple version: put the dressing in a separate little container or jar, and pack the salad dry. When lunch rolls around, pour, shake, eat. If you don’t own a dressing cup, a small mason jar works, or even a cleaned-out spice jar. You can also throw dressing in the bottom of a mason jar and layer salad on top — the dressing stays at the bottom until you shake it all together.

Two other things actually matter. First, dry your lettuce. A salad spinner isn’t a fancy-pants gadget, it’s the difference between crisp and wilted. Water is the enemy. Second, separate the watery stuff. Tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelon will soak your greens no matter what you do. Put them in a separate container, or at the very least, trap them between a barrier of something dry like shredded carrots or cabbage. A folded paper towel in the container also helps soak up moisture.

One more pro move: pack hearty stuff at the bottom (chicken, cheese, nuts, seeds) and fragile greens on top. That way nothing gets crushed, and if there’s any moisture in the box, it’s not sitting on your leaves all morning.

Dry greens, dressing on the side. That’s the whole secret.