Four Most Popular Sweetgreen Salads Made Vegan and Affordable

Sweetgreen is every salad lover's happy place: The fast-casual salad bar offers so many fresh options including leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, proteins, and dressings that it's easy to become a regular.

Sweetgreen makes healthy eating convenient and delicious, but expenses can add up over time, especially if find yourself wandering in the restaurant chain on your lunch break more than three times a week, so we created an easy solution.

We asked our in-house recipe developer, JD Raymundo, to make Sweetgreen's most popular salad recipes even healthier with a plant-based twist so you can make them at home and eat healthy, save money, and love it.

The four Sweetgreen salads made completely meat-and-dairy-free are the Kale Caesar, Guacamole Greens, Chicken + Brussels, Super Green Goddess. All four are highly nutritious, packed with fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals.

Many of these salads call for either chicken or some kind of cream-based dressing and to make it vegan we swapped the chicken for roasted tofu and blackened grilled tofu, and for the cream dressings, we used soaked cashews. These easy vegan swaps allow us to still enjoy the most popular and delicious recipes from Sweetgreen.

Whip together a vegan version of kale Cesar without compromising taste and make the dressing from scratch using cashews as the base. In this recipe, you will swap chicken for roasted tofu, a plant-based protein that mimics the texture of animal-based protein. The rest of the recipe is simple, just a bed of kale and romaine lettuce and toppings including sliced grape tomatoes and vegan parmesan. Make this salad for yourself, a loved one, or triple the ingredients and save the rest in the fridge as a healthy lunch for the week.

Recipe: How to Make Sweetgreen's Kale Caesar Salad Vegan

Sweetgreens' best-selling salad Guacamole Greens is originally made with roasted chicken, avocado, tomatoes, red onions, shredded cabbage, tortilla chips, spring mix, chopped romaine, a squeeze of lime, and jalapeño vinaigrette. We swapped the chicken for our homemade roasted tofu recipe that's just as delicious, if not better than the roasted chicken. A half-cup of tofu contains 10 grams of protein and is a good source of iron, which helps boost energy. Tofu is similar to a sponge in the way it absorbs the flavor. The soy-based protein mimics almost any of your favorite animal proteins with the right seasonings and cooking method. Enjoy this plant-based salad for a healthy lunch.

Recipe: Sweetgreen’s Guacamole Greens Salad

The original ingredients for this salad recipe calls for mesclun, romaine, walnuts, apples, roasted sweet potato, roasted chicken, two roasted Brussels sprouts, and cranberry maple dressing. Our version adds blackened tofu into the equation and eliminates chicken. For the tofu, you will use soy sauce, avocado oil, maple syrup, liquid smoke, garlic, pepper, and salt to mimic the same taste and texture of the animal product.

Recipe: How to Make Sweetgreen's Chicken + Brussels Salad Vegan 

In this Super Green Goddess recipe, you'll need a blender, sheet pan, and to preheat your oven all before you grab the salad bowl. You'll start by making the salad dressing. Note the cashews need to be soaked for a few hours or overnight, depending on the method you choose. Once the soak time is up, the rest is a breeze. You'll blend your ingredients for the dressing, and set it aside to roast your veggies and assemble the salad. Enjoy!

Recipe: Sweetgreen's Super Green Goddess Salad 

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