These 8 Restaurant Chains Serve The Best Salad

There was once a time when opting for a lighter meal at a chain restaurant meant settling for a sad bowl of wilted lettuce and a few lonely croutons. These days, fast casual chains have really stepped up their salad game to offer customers real nutritious alternatives that are still hearty and filling. From chargrilled chicken piled over fresh crunchy romaine to Mediterranean-inspired bowls packed with whole grains and bold dressings, some chain restaurants are proving that eating healthy doesn't need to be boring.

These fast casual restaurants are loading their salads with well-seasoned proteins, fresh produce, crunchy toppings, and sauces that customers can't stop raving about online. Some of these menu items have even developed cult followings on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram. Whether you are in the mood for a fruity and refreshing salad, prefer something more smoky and barbecue-forward, or can't get enough of fresh feta and salty olives, these are the eight chain restaurants that serve salads worth ordering.

If the great chicken sandwich wars of 2019 taught us anything, it's that people love Chick-fil-A's fried chicken. And while the best-selling item at Chick-fil-A remains its delectable chicken sandwich, it isn't necessarily the most nutritious lunch option, so the chain offers some salad options that include a chicken fix. It offers three salads on its menu, which you can order with your choice of fried or grilled nuggets, filets, or strips. The Market Salad features apples, strawberries, blueberries, blue cheese crumbles, granola, and nuts. The Cobb has grape tomatoes, sliced hard-boiled egg, roasted corn, and bacon crumbles. And the Spicy Southwest comes with black beans, corn, grape tomatoes, and seasoned tortilla chips.

Fans of the salads appreciate that you can customize them, adding your preferred toppings or doubling up on the chicken. What really makes these salads shine is the dressings. They offer tons of variety, including creamy salsa, avocado lime ranch, light balsamic vinaigrette, Italian, garden herb ranch, fat-free honey mustard, and zesty apple cider vinaigrette. On some Internet forums, customers suggest pairing the fruit-forward market salad with the balsamic vinaigrette, but it's great to have an apple cider option, too. Similarly, the avocado ranch dresses up the Cobb salad, a classic lunch, with something for today's palete. (That dressing also has it's supporters among the Spicy Southwest salad crowd.)

As an upscale fast-casual chain that specializes in sandwiches, salads, and bowls made with fresh and often locally-sourced ingredients, it comes as no surprise that Menocino Farms makes a mean salad. The restaurant rotates its menu fairly often, but it always has a few hearty crowd-pleasing salads on the menu. 

One of the salads that receives tons of love from customers online is the modern Caesar salad, which is a more nutritious twist on the classic fan-favorite. It features avocado, grape tomato, red onion, parmesan, superfood krunchies, romaine, kale, baby spinach, cabbage, and, of course, caesar dressing. It has customers returning time and time again.

One satisfied customer on TikTok explains that she had to return to eat the salad two days in a row. Maybe it's those krunchies, which use flash-fried quinoa and millet to give the salad a texture unlike others. Fans recommend adding chicken for some extra protein. The chain has other popular salads on rotation, like Baja Greek goddess (Impossible chorizo or chicken adobo), Thai mango (with noodles and pickled daikon), plus more. Fans appreciate that the chain doesn't skimp on the toppings and that the chicken is well-seasoned and moist.

Cava is often compared to Chipotle for its build-your-own style approach to bowls. However, the Mediterranean chain earns praise from customers for offering more customizations and larger portions than Chipotle, which has earned it tons of loyal fans. One customer on TikTok states, "Cava deserves more hype. It's $12 for a grilled chicken bowl with unlimited toppings, which is amazing in this economy," she says. Plus, Cava is known to "load up your bowl every time." We like value. 

It offers prebuilt bowls or allows you to customize your own so you can add your favorite additions, like the irresistible crazy feta, cabbage slaw, or crunchy pita strips.

You can make a greens bowl by choosing your lettuce, protein, toppings, dips, and sauces. Or, make it a more filling meal by adding a carb, like lentils or saffron basmati rice. The Mediterranean diet leans on whole grains, healthy fats, and plant-based foods that promote a healthy heart, healthy gut, and healthy brain, so as far as chain restaurant salads go, Cava is a delicious and nutritious option.

Sweetgreen is a health food chain that actually originated in a college dorm room at Georgetown University, and specializes in deliciously fresh, plant-forward bowls that are completely customizable. You can build your own bowl or order one of the menu salads, with a wide selection of toppings. Customers appreciate the fresh, modern spin on traditional bowls as well as the unique selection of ingredients that you don't see at every restaurant. One of its popular selections is the harvest bowl, which features unique ingredients like maple-glazed squash and charred balsamic cabbage.

Sweetgreen fans praise the salad dressings for stealing the show in many of the bowls. The spicy cashew lime dressing is "all the rage" according to one impressed customer on TikTok, and other customers on Reddit agree. And the pesto vinaigrette is popular as well, with some customers mixing it with hot sauce for an added kick. With such a wide variety of ingredients, the restaurant truly has something to satisfy everyone's taste buds and preferences.

Olive Garden is known for unlimited breadsticks and pasta bowls, but what some people don't realize about Olive Garden is that its salad is one of the most popular menu items. The Olive Garden house salad features olives, onions, pepperoncini, croutons, parmesan, and the infamous Italian dressing, which is what seals the deal for most customers. In fact, the dressing became so popular that Olive Garden bottled it to sell at grocery stores. True fans will know you can get two 28-ounce bottles of the good stuff from Costco.

According to one Yelp review, you simply can't go wrong with the soup, salad, and breadsticks combo. And customers have turned to Reddit to question what exactly the chain does to make the salad so craveable. One Redditor claims, "if it were me and i had an infinite stomach i'd just sit there till closing eating salad." Another Redditor recommends dipping your breadsticks in the dressing from the salad for a "glorious" experience.

Like Olive Garden, salad is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of CPK, but according to online reviews, the salad at this pizza chain is not to be overlooked, especially if you're in the mood for something a little lighter. The chain has an Italian chopped salad that was actually at the center of a controversy when customers were up in arms over a changed recipe in 2023. After the backlash, the chain returned the popular original recipe to its menus to the great relief of Italian chopped lovers everywhere.

The chain also introduced a Mediterranean menu in 2025 that features a big Greek salad complete with slices of fresh salty feta and full pepperoncini. One of the salads that receives consistent praise from customers online is the BBQ chicken chopped salad. One Redditor even claims the salad was all the motivation they needed to get out of bed in the morning.

The Cheesecake Factory is known for its notoriously extensive menu, especially within its salad menu, which follows suit. It offers 12 different enormous salads piled with mountains of toppings, as is customary of the chain. The monster salads are certainly big enough to share and offer a blend of vibrant and flavorful veggies and additions. It even has a delicious vegan option which is a take on the popular Cobb salad with a blend of beets, asparagus, green beans, farro, quinoa, pepitas, and more.

The Thai Chicken salad is another popular menu item that features a Thai vinaigrette and peanut sauce. One woman on TikTok explains, "I love when noodles make their way into a salad. The char on this chicken is amazing ... If you like a salad with a good crunch and a lot of flavor, this is it." 

On Reddit, customers praise Sheila's chicken and avocado salad (tortillas, cashews, carrots, and cilantro) as well. The Cheesecake Factory regularly updates its menu, and salads often get high regards during those refreshes. Pro tip: When you order a salad, do dressing on the side as sometimes its a heavy pour. 

Habit Burger is a popular burger chain that took a new approach to salads in order to offer its customers a healthier option. Jack Hinchliffe, chief marketing officer of Habit Burger explains in an interview with QSR, "The reality is, the most satisfying part of a salad isn't the lettuce, it's the protein. And no one does chargrilled chicken like we do."

Customers online agree. In a Reddit thread where consumers were asked their favorite chain salad, one customer states, "The BBQ chicken salad from The Habit!!! It's technically "fast food" but this is the salad that got me hooked on salads." It's hard to discount the open flame cooking. 

If barbecue chicken isn't your thing, the chain also has a popular harvest salad featuring vibrant ingredients like green apples, golden beets, charred chicken, dried cranberries, and a fuji apple vinaigrette to top it all off. The chain promises its meals are made fresh-to-order every time so the chicken comes hot off the grill, just like its sandwiches and burgers.

Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and Daily Meal.

In order to select the chains that serve the very best salads, I collected customer reviews from a wide range of sources in order to establish a positive customer consensus. I collected customer sentiment across social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. I filtered through Reddit threads and comments and checked Yelp reviews. I only included chains in the article that had raving reviews on multiple platforms with several comments affirming this opinion.

The analysis of "best" salad took into account the freshness of ingredients, likelihood of returning to order the salad again, and, of course, the taste. Additionally, I included salads that had the most positive reviews on size since chain restaurants tend to receive criticism for having bland or unfilling salads. All of the chains on this list have a variety of salads on their menus that come dressed in high-quality, delicious ingredients, according to customer ratings and reviews across the internet.