Chef salad

The least effort on this list for a properly filling plate. Strips of ham, turkey and Swiss or Cheddar go over crisp lettuce with hard-boiled egg, tomato and cucumber, and the only cooking is the eggs. That makes it the salad to reach for on a weeknight when the fridge holds deli meat and not much else, ready in about fifteen minutes. Its weakness is the dressing, which too often comes from a bottle: a quick honey-mustard vinaigrette or a thin blue cheese dressing whisked with buttermilk lifts it from canteen fare to something worth looking forward to.