Deciding what to make for dinner every day is hard enough. Making it for a family of 11 is even harder. But Melanie of RaisingCades on TikTok came up with an ingenious solution to feed her formidable flock: a restaurant-style salad bar.
Complete with a refrigerated salad bar portion on top, prep table, and refrigerated cabinets below, a commercial-grade salad bar might seem like a lot for a typical kitchen. But for Melanie, it was the perfect solution for quick and easy meals, and to encourage nutritious eating for her nine children.
“Our salad bar is stocked every week with fruits, vegetables, you name it,” she said.
Depending on how much the family uses it, Melanie stocks the bar one to two times per week.
“This time I air-fried some brussels sprouts with some bacon,” she said. “I boiled and cut some eggs — my children ate about half of them already. I sliced the whole turkey breast that I got from Costco, fresh peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms. I washed my lettuce and then placed the paper towel down at the bottom of the container so as to absorb that moisture, keeping my lettuce fresh, chopped up some fresh broccoli.”
In the refrigerators under the bar, Melanie also keeps dressings, salad toppings, fresh-washed berries, sandwich supplies, juice boxes, and more.
Before investing in the commercial salad bar, Melanie had kept a similar system of pre-washed, pre-cut salad ingredients in her regular refrigerator. While any food prep system certainly requires a lot of work to keep up with, Melanie has found that it is just the thing that works for her family.
“A, it gives us a quick meal option, because the salad bar is always stocked and open and B, my children are more likely to choose fresh produce if it’s already prepped and ready to eat.”
Commenters gushed over Melanie’s idea, and many expressed how much they now wanted a salad bar in their own kitchens.
“My husband has no idea yet, but we are getting a salad bar,” said Melanie.
“When food is ‘present’ to the eyes you eat more and in this case it’s healthy … love this,” said Yella.
“Soo are you adopting?? I’m 34 but still!!! I clean!!” joked Jas_Victoria
Personally, I would also love to be adopted into Melanie’s salad bar-having household. But since that’s pretty unlikely, maybe I’ll just start prepping salad ingredients for my regular old refrigerator.
