20 Low-Calorie High-Protein Spring Salads You’ll Love

Let’s be honest — most salads have a terrible reputation. Limp lettuce, a sad drizzle of bottled dressing, and a protein situation so bleak that you’re hungry again before you’ve even cleared the table. Been there, suffered that. But spring is actually one of the best times to flip that script entirely, because the season hands you some genuinely excellent ingredients and gives you zero excuse not to build a salad that could hold its own as a full, satisfying meal.

These twenty low-calorie high-protein spring salads are the kind that actually keep you full for hours. We’re talking meals that clock in under 400 calories per serving while delivering 25 grams of protein or more. That balance matters. According to research on protein and satiety published by Healthline, a higher protein intake boosts appetite-reducing hormones like GLP-1 and PYY while simultaneously reducing ghrelin — the hormone that tells your brain it’s hungry. In plain language: more protein means you stop eyeing the kitchen every forty-five minutes.

What makes spring the sweet spot for all of this? Fresh asparagus, snap peas, radishes, pea shoots, baby arugula, and spring onions all arrive at once, and each one brings serious nutritional value alongside big flavor. Pair those with smart protein choices — grilled chicken, hard-boiled eggs, shrimp, chickpeas, or edamame — and you end up with bowls that are colorful, exciting, and genuinely good to eat. No dramatic willpower required.

Whether you’re pulling together quick weekday lunches, looking for solid meal prep options, or just trying to eat a little cleaner as the weather warms up, these recipes will earn a spot in your regular rotation. IMO, spring salads done right are some of the best meals of the year.

Why These Salads Actually Work

There’s a big difference between a salad that looks healthy and a salad that’s built to perform. The secret is structure: a fiber-rich base, a quality protein source, a small amount of healthy fat to aid nutrient absorption, and a dressing that adds flavor without piling on unnecessary calories.

Think about what you get with something like a grilled chicken and snap pea salad over baby spinach with lemon vinaigrette. Spinach offers iron and folate, snap peas deliver fiber and vitamin C, and a 4-ounce serving of grilled chicken contributes roughly 35 grams of protein for around 185 calories. The whole bowl might land at 320 calories with 38 grams of protein. That’s a legitimately powerful meal. For a deeper look at building meals like this, the science behind higher protein intake consistently supports its role in supporting muscle maintenance, healthy metabolism, and long-term weight management.

Spring greens have another advantage over heartier winter options: they’re lighter in flavor, which means your dressing and toppings can shine without fighting through a bitter backdrop. Baby arugula, pea shoots, and watercress all carry just enough personality to make a bowl interesting without overwhelming everything else.

One more thing worth knowing: not all protein sources perform equally when it comes to satiety. Chicken breast and eggs are extremely efficient — high protein, relatively low in calories, and digested slowly enough to keep you feeling full. Chickpeas and edamame are the plant-based all-stars here, offering both protein and fiber in the same ingredient. Speaking of plant-based options, if you want to explore full vegan salad builds alongside these, there are some fantastic high-protein vegan meal ideas worth bookmarking.

The 20 Salads: Full List at a Glance

Below you’ll find all twenty recipes in a quick-reference format with approximate calorie and protein counts. Each one follows the same principle: high protein, light on calories, built with seasonal spring ingredients, and actually worth eating. Detailed walkthroughs follow in the sections below.

Building Blocks: The Protein Sources That Make These Salads Work

You could throw any protein on top of lettuce and technically have a high-protein salad. But some combinations work significantly better than others — both in terms of how well they hold up after dressing and how much flavor they bring to the bowl. Here’s how the major players break down across this list.

Lean Poultry

Grilled chicken breast and sliced turkey are the workhorses of this collection. A 3.5-ounce serving of grilled chicken breast brings roughly 31 grams of protein at about 165 calories, which is a wildly efficient ratio. The key is cooking it properly — most dry, sad salad chicken is overcooked. Pull it off the heat at 163°F and let it rest. You’ll get juicy, flavorful chicken that actually tastes like something. For quick prep, I keep a BPA-free glass meal prep container set loaded with precooked chicken strips in the fridge Monday through Friday. Game-changer.

Seafood Options

Shrimp, salmon, and canned tuna are the seafood MVPs of spring salads. Shrimp is almost absurdly low-calorie — about 24 grams of protein for roughly 100 calories — and it pairs brilliantly with citrus dressings and snap peas. Salmon takes it a step further by adding omega-3 fatty acids, which support cardiovascular health and reduce inflammation alongside the protein benefit. Tuna from a quality can is fast, affordable, and just as effective. I reach for a quality tuna press tool to drain the liquid quickly without making a mess — it sounds like overkill until you’ve juggled a fork and a can lid at 6:45 AM.

Plant-Based Proteins

Chickpeas, edamame, lentils, and tofu make this list genuinely inclusive for people who don’t eat meat. The interesting thing about plant proteins is that they often come bundled with fiber — a half cup of chickpeas delivers about 8 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber simultaneously. That fiber content slows digestion and extends satiety in a way that lean meat alone doesn’t replicate. If you want to go deeper into plant-based eating with these same principles, the high-protein vegetarian recipes on this site are a natural extension.

The Spring Ingredients That Elevate Every Bowl

Seasonal eating isn’t just a marketing concept — spring produce genuinely does taste different. Asparagus harvested in April has a sweetness that grocery store asparagus in December simply can’t replicate. The same goes for snap peas, spring onions, and fresh radishes. Using ingredients at their peak flavor means you can use lighter dressings and fewer calories to achieve a great-tasting bowl.

Asparagus

Asparagus belongs in more salads than it currently appears in. Roasted or blanched, it brings a mild earthiness that plays well against bright citrus dressings or anything with a little heat. One cup of asparagus contains about 27 calories, 3 grams of protein, and 2.8 grams of fiber — respectable numbers for a vegetable doing a supporting role. For the Grilled Salmon, Asparagus and Lemon Caper Salad (number 11 on our list), I blanch the spears for exactly 90 seconds in boiling salted water, then shock them in ice water. That technique preserves the bright green color and keeps the texture snappy.

Snap Peas and Pea Shoots

Snap peas are one of those ingredients that make people who claim to hate salads quietly ask for seconds. They’re sweet, they have a satisfying crunch that holds up under dressing, and they pair well with everything from miso ginger to lemon herb to a simple balsamic. Pea shoots — the tender young tendrils of the pea plant — are even more delicate and mild, which makes them excellent as a base or a finishing garnish.

Radishes

Radishes are chronically underused outside of French butter-and-bread situations. Sliced thin, they add a peppery bite, a gorgeous pop of color, and a satisfying crunch that holds up for at least a day under refrigeration — which makes them ideal for meal prep. The roasted version, which shows up in the lentil salad on this list, mellows considerably and takes on a sweeter, almost nutty character. FYI, if you pick up a Japanese mandoline slicer, you’ll be shaving radishes so thin they’re almost translucent in about thirty seconds. Nothing fancy required — just consistent, beautiful slices without the knife skills risk.

The Dressing Strategy: Flavor Without the Calorie Bomb

Here’s where most salads die quietly: the dressing. A two-tablespoon pour of a standard bottled ranch dressing can run 140 calories and 14 grams of fat. Do that twice and you’ve just added 280 mystery calories to an otherwise light meal. The answer isn’t dry salads — it’s smarter dressings.

For these spring recipes, the dressing philosophy is simple: acid-forward, olive oil-based, and bold in flavor so a small amount goes a long way. A basic lemon vinaigrette — two tablespoons of good olive oil, two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, a teaspoon of Dijon, salt and pepper — costs you about 80 calories and delivers more flavor than most bottled dressings twice its calorie count. The Dijon is the secret weapon. It acts as an emulsifier that holds the oil and acid together and adds a gentle sharpness that rounds everything out.

Greek yogurt-based dressings work brilliantly for the creamier versions on this list. Swap full-fat mayo for full-fat Greek yogurt in any creamy dressing and you cut calories significantly while actually increasing the protein content. I blend mine with a compact immersion blender directly in a mason jar — thirty seconds, no extra bowls, done.

Tahini dressings are another excellent choice for the plant-based salads. Tahini is made from sesame seeds, which means it adds both healthy unsaturated fats and a small protein contribution on its own. Thinned with lemon juice and a little water, it becomes a light, nutty drizzle that transforms the lentil and roasted radish salad into something genuinely special. Compared to almond butter-based dressings, tahini has a slightly more savory, less sweet profile — worth knowing when you’re building flavor combinations.

How to Meal Prep These Salads Without Ending Up With Sad Soggy Lunch

Meal prepping salads has a bad reputation, and honestly, it’s earned. A fully-assembled salad sitting in dressing for three days is not a lunch — it’s a science experiment. But prepping the components separately? That works extremely well and takes most of the daily effort off the table entirely.

The framework is straightforward. On Sunday, grill or bake your proteins and store them in sealed containers. Wash and dry your greens and keep them in an airtight container with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture. Chop your harder vegetables — radishes, cucumber, snap peas — and store them separately. Make your dressings and keep them in small sealed jars. Assembly each day takes under two minutes. This is the kind of infrastructure that makes healthy eating actually sustainable rather than aspirational.

For the protein-forward salads, stagger your proteins across different flavors to avoid monotony. Grilled lemon herb chicken on Monday and Wednesday, shrimp on Tuesday and Thursday, canned tuna or hard-boiled eggs on Friday. You’re working from the same base ingredients but eating differently every day. If this approach clicks with you, the high-protein meal prep ideas for athletes take this structure even further with more precise macro targeting.

The Dressing Rule for Meal Prep

Always pack the dressing separately. Always. There are no exceptions to this. Even a vinaigrette will wilt your greens within an hour if you pre-dress. A small set of leakproof silicone condiment containers solves this permanently — they clip inside your lunch bag and eliminate the need for the old plastic wrap and rubber band trick that nobody was ever really happy with.

Five Standout Recipes Worth a Closer Look

Every salad on this list earns its spot, but a few of them keep coming up as reader favorites — either because the flavor combination is particularly unexpected, the protein count is especially high, or the prep time is genuinely minimal. Here are the five that get the most repeat attention.

Grilled Salmon, Asparagus & Lemon Caper Salad (No. 11)

This one tops the protein chart at 40 grams per serving, which is remarkable for a salad. The salmon brings omega-3 fatty acids alongside its protein contribution, and the capers add a briny, salty note that makes the whole bowl taste significantly more interesting than the ingredient list might suggest. Blanched asparagus and a simple lemon-olive oil base keep the calories at approximately 370 per serving. Get Full Recipe

Edamame, Quinoa & Miso-Ginger Salad (No. 8)

This is the plant-based standout of the collection. Edamame contributes about 17 grams of protein per cup — remarkably high for a plant source — and quinoa adds a complete amino acid profile alongside its carbohydrate content, which makes this bowl genuinely filling without any animal protein. The miso-ginger dressing is worth making in a double batch; it works on everything. Get Full Recipe

Cottage Cheese, Beet & Arugula Salad (No. 9)

This one surprises people. Cottage cheese is having a well-deserved moment right now — half a cup delivers about 14 grams of protein at 90 calories, with a creamy, mild flavor that pairs beautifully with the earthiness of roasted beets and the peppery bite of fresh arugula. The combination reads like something from a nice restaurant, and the total build clocks in at about 255 calories. The lowest-calorie option on the list with no sacrifice in satisfaction. Get Full Recipe

Spring Cobb with Turkey, Egg & Avocado (No. 18)

A Cobb salad rebuilt for spring. Turkey replaces the traditional bacon, hard-boiled egg whites double up the protein, and a light champagne vinaigrette stands in for the heavy blue cheese dressing. Avocado stays because avocado is non-negotiable. At 380 calories and 34 grams of protein, this is the most indulgent-tasting entry on the list. Get Full Recipe

Green Goddess Shrimp & Butter Lettuce Salad (No. 20)

Butter lettuce is criminally overlooked as a salad base. The leaves are tender, slightly sweet, and form natural cups that hold toppings perfectly — which makes eating this bowl feel a little more fun than most salads. Shrimp is marinated briefly in lemon and garlic before a quick sear, and the green goddess dressing is made with Greek yogurt and fresh herbs to keep the calories honest. Get Full Recipe