10 Chain Restaurant Salads You Should Never Order

Salads are some of the easiest, simplest, and best dishes to make at home. You don't have to be an amazing cook to pull them off, and they usually taste good as long as you're using high-quality ingredients. However, making a salad can be a time-consuming process, and when you're busy and craving something on the healthier end of the spectrum, you may want to snag a salad from a chain restaurant. There are definitely some decent chain restaurant salads out there, but there are others that are far from delicious.

We've compiled this list of chain restaurant salads to avoid if you're seeking an enjoyable veggie-eating experience. They may be sparse or include ingredients that simply don't belong in a salad. By getting a better idea of which chain restaurant salads probably aren't worth your time, you can choose options that actually will fulfill your salad cravings. Avoid these salads, and your next restaurant salad experience may just be a bit more delicious.

Sometimes, a super basic salad, like a spicy Korean cucumber salad, can really hit the spot. Just because a salad doesn't contain many different ingredients doesn't mean it's not going to be appetizing. But for us, Dairy Queen's chicken strip salad is just a bit too low-effort. There's barely anything going on here at all — it's essentially just chicken strips on a bed of lettuce. Admittedly, it also contains diced tomatoes, bacon, and shredded cheddar cheese, but those few ingredients don't exactly make for an impressive, flavorful salad. Drizzling it all with a bit of ranch dressing doesn't do much to make it that much more interesting, unfortunately.

Sure, if you just wanted to throw some veggies in a bowl at home and top it with some frozen chicken strips, you might be able to justify it as a salad, albeit a bleak one. But if you're actually going to pay fast food prices for such a sad salad, it kind of feels like a rip-off.

It's always nice when a chain restaurant — especially one with selections as heavy as the ones you'll find at Jack in the Box — offers a lighter option for days you don't feel like downing burgers and fries without a green vegetable in sight. But Jack in the Box's side salad is just not worth your money. It only has three ingredients: romaine lettuce, carrots, and grape tomatoes. All of that comes completely unseasoned unless, of course, you add the buttermilk ranch on top (which is decidedly the dressing of people who don't even like vegetables in the first place).

Some people hate salads because this is the kind of salad they've always been exposed to. A random bowl of plain vegetables (or vegetables doused in dairy) is never going to taste that good. You're better off just grabbing a box of lettuce from your local grocery store and munching on that instead.

Look — we're not purists when it comes to most foods. We love a creative switch-up that makes a dish more interesting or less conventional. But sometimes, food traditions are there for a reason, and that's certainly the case with Caesar salad. Caesar salad should unequivocally have a base of crunchy lettuce. Take away the lettuce and replace it with another type of green, and you don't really have a Caesar salad at all.

Well, that's just what you'll get when you order Sweetgreen's kale Caesar salad. Do we love kale? Of course. It just doesn't belong in a Caesar salad. To make matters even worse, they also include tomatoes in the mix. When have you ever had a good Caesar salad that contained tomatoes? It's an abomination we absolutely cannot support. The Parmesan crisps are an unconventional addition, too, but that's at least one ingredient that makes sense in a Caesar salad. Overall, though, this salad is destined to be a disappointment to any true Caesar salad lover out there.

Wendy's Parmesan Caesar salad is a bit closer to the real deal, and for that, we're grateful. There's not a shred of kale in sight in this salad, which makes it a step up from Sweetgreen's version in terms of authenticity. But let's be honest: If you're actually looking for a good-quality, flavorful salad, Wendy's is probably not the best place to go. The chain is known for its burgers and chicken sandwiches — not salads. That should be enough to convince you to stay far away from the salad section.

This salad isn't terrible, but it's just kind of boring, with nothing that makes it stand out from slews of other chain restaurant salads out there. Without a freshly made Caesar dressing, a Caesar salad is always going to fall short. Since it has so few ingredients, the freshness and quality of each one really matter. And when those ingredients come out of a drive-thru known for its greasy burgers? You can't expect to get anything too inspiring. Try making our grilled chicken Caesar salad instead.

It's great if you're trying to make healthier choices, like eating more salads or vegetables. But most of the time, you're better off making them at home. After all, when you choose to buy a salad at a chain restaurant, you may be faced with something like Subway's cold cut combo salad.

This salad is literally just some lettuce, a few random vegetables, and chopped-up deli meats. It absolutely feels like an afterthought instead of an actually well-constructed menu item. The brand couldn't even offer a protein source more interesting than chopped cold cuts. It feels like something you would make when you have nothing in the fridge and don't want to bother going out to get groceries. If you're craving a sub sandwich, then go ahead and head to Subway. But when it's a salad that you want, this chain restaurant should not be your go-to location.

A lot of side salads you'll find on chain restaurant menus aren't exactly delicious. Most of the time, it seems like they're just an attempt for restaurants to claim that they're offering healthier choices. Burger King's Garden Side Salad is no exception. This is a particularly sad and meager salad, although the mix of different types of lettuce isn't a bad base for a salad overall. The cherry tomatoes, though, don't taste good when they're unseasoned and undressed, and the corn and cucumber additions feel like an afterthought instead of an intentional way to improve the flavor of the mixture. Without additional veggies or seasoning, this combo falls flat.

We have to hand it to Burger King for offering different types of dressing, including balsamic, yogurt, and Caesar dressings. But the availability of these options doesn't make up for the fact that this salad is, at its core, just a random assortment of vegetables without anything to really bring the dish together.

If you're the kind of person who hates vegetables and would prefer a fruit plate, then Chick-fil-A's Market Salad may be what you're looking for. This salad is strewn with fruit, including both red and green apples, along with blueberries and strawberries. Now, we're not complaining about fruit being on a salad, but this is a lot of fruit — like, way too much of it. At the same time, you're not really getting many veggies from this dish, apart from the bed of mixed greens on which the other ingredients rest.

The lack of vegetables makes this salad one-note, and when paired with the grilled chicken breast on top, all that fruit seems kind of out of place. If what you're actually craving is a fruit bowl, but you want to make it more filling and appropriate for lunch or dinner, go ahead and order this salad. But if you actually want a salad that tastes like a salad, there are much better chain restaurant salads to choose from.

Despite knowing that you should choose the "healthier" option at times, it might not really be what you're craving. It seems like that's exactly what Zaxby's The Cobb Zalad is for. This cobb salad comes with bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and chicken, which you can either get fried or grilled, depending on your preference. The chain also adds Texas toast to the dish. It all rests on a bed of veggies, including mixed greens, red cabbage, and carrots. But those veggies seem pretty sparse compared to all of the other heavier ingredients you're getting in the mix. The result is a salad that feels more like a deconstructed sandwich than it does an actual salad.

Of course, not every salad needs to be super light — in fact, we love a salad that offers plenty of more indulgent ingredients. But when it's as lacking in veggies as this salad is, we think you should just go for a sandwich instead.

Panera's Asian sesame chicken salad is one of the stranger chain restaurant salads we've ever seen. The sesame seeds, sesame vinaigrette, and crispy wonton strips are, we guess, what makes it "Asian," but otherwise, the ingredients in this salad seem rather random. You'll find lettuce, slivered almonds, and, inexplicably, cilantro. The grilled chicken on top of the salad looks sad and anemic and doesn't seem to offer much in terms of flavor.

This is a strange salad with very little that seems appealing. Sure, there are a few random ingredients in the mix, but it's mostly just lettuce and chicken. It would be incredibly easy to make this recipe at home, and it would save you a lot of money in the process. If you want a super basic salad with a touch of an American perception of "Asian" flavor, then this salad may be for you. However, Panera — and plenty of other chain restaurants — offer better salads.

We absolutely love it when fast food chains offer vegetarian menu options. Whether you choose to eat meat on a regular basis or not, it's nice to have the option to opt out of a meat-based meal and choose something lighter and more climate-friendly. But, unfortunately, Sweetgreen's Hummus Crunch is just not it for us, simply because it's not very imaginative for a chain that specifically focuses on salads. Surely, Sweetgreen could've come up with something more interesting for vegetarians than hummus and chickpeas, but that's all you're going to get here, in addition to a slew of fresh veggies, including red cabbage, spicy banana peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Those vegetables, though, don't make up for the lack of other more satiating ingredients, especially because we found the chickpeas and hummus lacking when we ordered the dish.

This salad doesn't necessarily taste bad, but it's uninteresting and not very filling. If you're looking for a better and more interesting vegetarian option from the chain, you may want to check out the Super Green Goddess instead and leave this hummus-doused option behind.