How to Keep Your Lunch Salads Fresher

As a defiant response to Sad Desk Lunches, the Food52 team works to keep our midday meals both interesting and pretty. Each week, we'll be sharing our happiest desk lunches -- and we want to see yours, too.

Today, Food52's UI Designer & Developer Ryan Hamilton explains how he keeps his lunch salads fresh, thanks to layering and compartmentalizing.

Most of the credit for this lunch goes to my wife, Marianne; I was simply the sous assisting in packing our pair of salads. We always layer the ingredients in plastic containers and keep the dressing separate in a small glass jar, to keep things from getting soggy. This one consisted of a grab bag from our CSA: baby greens, basil, dill, cilantro, rotisserie chicken, hard-boiled egg, bacon, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, sweet corn, haricot verts, cucumber, and grape tomatoes. The dressing consisted of yogurt, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard and lemon juice. My kind of salad.

Tell us: How do you keep your lunch salads fresh? What are your favorite ingredients?