If you’re going to spend a bunch of time chopping up your veggies and grilling your protein to perfection, your dressing should measure up to the calculated textures you’ve created thus far. A watery dressing that trickles to the bottom of your bowl just won’t do the job here. 

Instead, create a creamy, structured base for your dressing. This way, it’ll coat each chopped veggie and slice of protein (be it chicken, tempeh, etc.), helping your salad hold on to the flavor. 

You can enlist protein-rich plain Greek yogurt, blend your dressing ingredients with a feta or cottage cheese, keep tahini on hand, make the most of your mustard, or consider adding peanut butter to the mix. The goal here is to eliminate the runny dressing consistency so your dressing actually sticks to all of the moving parts of your salad or bowl. 

Plus, many of these creamy bases come loaded with extra protein, so it makes reaching your daily goal of this macronutrient just a bit easier.