Bowls of greens are bringing in the green for the fast-growing salad segment, with premium chains such as Sweetgreen, Just Salad, and CAVA, harvesting substantial sales gains. The success is a sign for other chains—not just those that are salad-focused—to freshen up their menus to meet consumer demand for main dish salads.
Consumers are eating up salads these days, driven in large part by a growing interest in health and wellness. According to Datassential’s 2024 Healthy Food Trends report, over half (53%) of consumers say it’s important for them to offer healthful main dish options. Salads were most important, with 64% of consumers saying they want them on the menu, even if they sometimes select more indulgent options.
Yet, despite the growing demand for salad, only 62.3% of Top 500 chain restaurants offer a salad main dish, according to Technomic’s Ignite Menu.
With a primary ingredient of leafy greens—which can be purchased in bulk year-round, and require less labor and energy needed to prepare them—salads can be a cost-effective addition for adding value, pleasing guests, and increasing profitability.
A food for all
Once considered to be mainly attractive to women customers, salads have moved beyond gendered cultural perceptions as men increasingly order them. Indeed, according to Technomic’s Ignite Consumer, the main dish salad consumer now skews male, millennial, white, and high income (over $150K).
With more men ordering salads, it’s not surprising that top five cuisine types within the Top 500 chains offering salads include places whose customer base skews male: sports bars, varied menu, Mexican, and Italian/pizza.
For example, when Blaze Pizza made its first menu changes in decades, it fired up flavorful new pizzas and other dough delights, together with main dish salads and dressings. Among the offerings are the Pizza Shop Chop Salad, with chopped romaine lettuce, sliced mushrooms, red onion, banana peppers, black olives, and shredded cheese. The chain is also expecting to introduce the Grapes, Gorgonzola and Green Salad, with Arcadian greens, sliced red and green peppers, red onion, and gorgonzola cheese.
Meanwhile, this spring Brazilian steakhouse chain Fogo de Chao introduced a number of new menu items, including such salads as the Crispy Chickpea Kale Salad made with crispy chickpeas, radicchio, and baby kale tossed in a parmesan ranch dressing, and Mango Black Rice Salad with black rice, mango, bell pepper, and sweety drop peppers, tossed in a Brazilian chili dressing.
Not just for lunch anymore
Most salad orders at limited- and full-service restaurants occur at dinner, Technomic found. At full-service restaurants, 48% of consumers who ordered a salad ordered it at dinner and 28% ordered it at lunch. At limited-service restaurants, 41% of consumers who ordered a salad ordered it at dinner, while 37% ordered it at lunch. However, perhaps more interestingly, since the percent of salads ordered at limited service operations at lunch is greater than the overall percent of visit occasions, salad orders skew greater at lunch and other dayparts—breakfast, snacking, and late night.
Breakfast salad? Yes, some menu trend-watchers say salad for breakfast is gaining traction. An increasing number of consumers are being driven by health experts’ advice to avoid high-carb, high-sugar morning meals typical of Western diets, among other health benefits.
No matter what time of day they’re ordered, chicken salad entrée, Latin-inspired salad entrée, Caesar salad, specialty salad entrée, and Cobb salad, are the top five most-popular main dish salads at Top 500 chains, according to Technomic.
The salads being added to menus of late run the gamut. Culver’s added the seasonal Strawberry Fields Salad, made with crispy greens, grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, fresh strawberries, blue cheese crumbles, and topped with lightly salted pecans. Corner Bakery Café has a new Southwest Chicken Salad, with chicken, corn, and tomato salsa, cheddar cheese, tortilla strips, and avocado ranch dressing on iceberg and romaine lettuce. Denny’s recently added a slew of new items to its permanent menu, including the Egg-cellent Grilled Chicken Cobb, a classic Cobb salad that can also be ordered topped with Prime Rib.
Like an ideal front-of-house team, it may take a little experimenting to build main dish salads that are a good fit for your menu. But adding salad options offers restaurants in all segments the opportunity to attract a broader range of consumers across dayparts, grow sales, and much more.