Easy Greens: A Guide to Salad

When it comes to adding fresh greens to your dinner table, Giant Eagle^® has it in the bag. With a little creativity, any of our delicious bagged salads can become the highlight of the meal — especially on your busiest weeknights.

From our Italian and American salad blends to Springtime Spinach and European salads, the Giant Eagle^® Produce Department stocks a bagged salad for every taste. The fun part is adding your favorite ingredients for a truly special meal.

Turn a simple bagged salad into a delicious, healthy meal with these suggestions:

For a delightful, Caprese-style salad, add marinated peppers, Mozzarella cheese, and vinaigrette dressing to Giant Eagle^® Romaine Chopped bagged salad.
Create a meat lover's treat — crumble a little blue cheese into bottled or homemade salad dressing, and toss with our Italian Salad Blend, grape tomatoes, red onions, and thinly sliced steak.
Combine our Spring Mix salad with hard-cooked eggs and marinated artichoke hearts. Then, sprinkle the salad with grated Parmesan, Asiago, or Romano cheese.
Add a pleasing crunch to any salad with homemade croutons. Tear bread into bite-size pieces, toss it in a bowl with a little olive oil, and spread the bread bits on a baking sheet. Toast in your oven at 350-400^oF for a few minutes until the bread browns. Sprinkle the croutons over your salad just before serving.
A rotisserie chicken from Giant Eagle^® makes an excellent salad add-on. Just pull the meat off the bones, toss the shredded chicken with a bag of our Romaine Chopped salad mix, and top with Caesar salad dressing!

Salad dressing mix-ins

In the mood for a change? Create customized, homemade flavor by adding your own ingredients to your favorite bottled salad dressing.

Try adding:

Fresh-crumbled blue cheese and a dollop of sour cream to blue cheese dressing.
Finely chopped fresh dill and fresh-ground pepper to buttermilk dressing.
Finely chopped fresh tarragon and chives to French dressing.
Finely chopped red onion and Italian parsley to Italian dressing.
Finely chopped fresh chives and parsley to ranch dressing.
Chopped, canned mandarin oranges and poppy seeds to sweet-and-sour dressing.
A dash of paprika or cayenne pepper to Thousand Island dressing.

A new leaf

If you're accustomed to iceberg or romaine lettuce, you may not be familiar with some of the more exotic ingredients in Giant Eagle^® bagged salad mixes. Follow our taste guide and try a new type of green today:

Arugula — Arugula is long-stemmed with a tender, deep green leaf. The flavor is peppery and sometimes sharp, like horseradish. Some salads feature baby arugula, which has a milder taste.
Frisée — Frisée is characterized by tender, curly leaves that range in color from creamy yellow to light green, with a slightly sharp to bitter taste.
Mâche — Mâche is a pale-green, very tender, thumb-shaped leaf lettuce with a very mild taste. It’s also called "lamb's lettuce" or "corn salad."
Radicchio — Radicchio is round like cabbage, with deep-veined, red and white leaves and a juicy, bitter taste.
Red oak leaf lettuce — This type of lettuce is known by its big, red leaves and delicate, sweet flavor. This tasty green is often part of a salad mix that includes bolder greens.