Wendy's Do-It-Yourself Salad (Tasty and Cheap)

I love Wendy's value menu. The options available for 99 cents have such a high value-to-cost ratio as to make everything else on the menu hardly worth a second glance. For a buck you can get a decent cheeseburger or even a bacon cheeseburger—complete with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, etc. You can also get fries, chicken nuggets, a good sized side salad, a baked potato, or a number of other entrees and sides.

For lunch today I had again my recent Wendy's favorite: a great do-it-yourself value-menu combo. It's a filling chicken salad that you can get for $2. Here's how:

1. Order the side salad for 99 cents. I've tried the Caesar side salad (also 99 cents), but I prefer the other because it has more stuff (tomato, cucumber, carrots). The side salad comes with a few dressing options, which they'll ask you about. I've tried it with the ranch, which was good, but I actually prefer a nontraditional dressing (see step 3). These days I tell the person taking my order that I don't want a dressing.

2. The side salad does not come with croutons; those go with the Caesar side salad. However, I've found they'll give you croutons free if you ask. I like croutons, so I always ask.

3. Order the 5-piece chicken nuggets, also for 99 cents. You have a number of sauce options. I love the honey mustard, which makes a tangy, sweet salad dressing. To get enough for the salad, though, you have to get two containers of the sauce, which they always provide for the asking.

4. The container the salad comes in isn't quite big enough to eat the salad in—without making a huge mess—so it helps to split it in half. The top of the container makes a nice second plate into which you can put half the salad.

5. To each half of the salad you can then add half of the chicken nuggets. The size of the nuggets exceeds polite single-bite morsels, so I like to break them into smaller pieces. This is easily done with your fingers, or there is a fork and a knife included with your salad—if you have scruples against finger food. (But if that's the case, why are you eating something from Wendy's 99-cent value menu?) I break each nugget into four to six smaller pieces.

6. If you opted for croutons, add half of the croutons to each half of the salad.

7. Add one container of honey mustard sauce/dressing to each half of the salad. The dressing is a bit on the thick side (remember, until a minute ago it was dipping sauce); the knife works well to extract it from the container and apply it to the salad.

8. Enjoy your tasty chicken salad and relish the fact that you only paid $2.22 (counting tax) while some other poor soul paid five bucks for a pre-made salad.

According to Wendy's Web site, this meal (not counting the croutons and one of the honey mustard dressing sides, because I don't know how to make their system calculate those extras) includes 370 calories, 24 grams of fat, 26 carbs, and 15 grams of protein. I'm afraid I don't pay enough attention to such things to know if that is good or not. But it's tasty. And cheap.