Menus & Cuisines
Medellin Elite Catering makes salads that are meant to be a meal: crisp greens from farms in eastern Antioquia, roasted vegetables, warm grains, grilled proteins and dressings blended in our kitchen that morning. We serve them as a build-your-own salad bar, as individual bowls, or as composed salads on platters.
Our salad catering is chosen by offices running wellness weeks, yoga and corporate retreats at fincas, fitness studios, conference organizers and hosts with many vegetarian or vegan guests. It is also the lunch people request most when a team has had too many heavy meals in a row.
We have catered events in Medellín since 2019, and salads carry a risk that hot dishes do not: raw produce is never cooked, so it must be cleaned right. Every leaf we serve goes through a measured disinfection step, and every bar is kept cold on ice from setup to cleanup.
Plan your event
We cater salads as the main lunch at offices and retreats, as a fresh counterweight on a larger buffet, and as daily bowls for teams on a recurring plan. A salad bar suits groups who like to choose, while boxed bowls suit meetings where people eat at their desks.
Most of our salad orders are weekday lunches, often booked alongside our lunch catering service when part of a team wants something hot and the rest want something light. Retreat organizers book them for three or four days at a time, rotating grains, proteins and dressings so the menu never repeats.
Antioquia grows almost everything a salad needs, and most of our vegetables come from the cool farms of eastern Antioquia around Rionegro, Marinilla, El Santuario and La Ceja. At around 2,100 m of altitude those farms grow lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, beetroot, carrots and herbs all year, and the produce reaches our kitchen within a day of harvest.
Hass avocado is one of the region's big crops, so it appears in many of our bowls at its best ripeness, and we cut it last to stop it browning. From warmer valleys come mango, pineapple, papaya and uchuva (cape gooseberry), and from the coffee region come gulupa and passion fruit for dressings.
Because Colombia has no real seasons, the change through the year comes from the two rainy seasons, April to May and October to November. Heavy rain can bruise leaves and thin out supply for a few weeks, so we keep a second supplier for each green and adjust the mix rather than serve tired lettuce.
A salad bar lets each guest build their own plate, while composed salads arrive already designed and dressed by our cooks. The right choice depends on headcount, time and how keen your guests are to customize.
| Salad bar | Composed salads or bowls | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | 15 to 20 ingredients in chilled pans; guests build their own | Our cooks combine the ingredients; one or two recipes per event |
| Best for | Retreats, wellness days, mixed diets | Meetings, conferences, seated lunches |
| Speed | About 1 minute per guest at the line | Instant; guests pick up and go |
| Staff | One attendant per bar to refill and keep it tidy | None needed for drop-off |
| Waste | Higher, about 10% extra prep | Lower, portioned to the headcount |
| Dietary control | Guests choose, so separate pans and tongs matter | We label each bowl |
For groups over 60, one salad bar becomes a bottleneck, so we set up two sides of the same table or add a second bar. Many hosts choose both formats: a bar for the retreat lunch and composed bowls for the day the group is out on an excursion.
Protein is what turns a salad into lunch, and every menu includes at least one animal and one plant option. Dressings are made in our kitchen, kept in sealed bottles and always served on the side, because a dressed salad wilts within 30 minutes in Medellín's afternoon warmth.
Choose from grilled chicken thigh marinated in lime and cumin, soft-boiled eggs, grilled tofu, falafel, roasted chickpeas, flank steak cooked medium and sliced thin, and Chilean salmon roasted at 180 °C. Cheese options include queso campesino, feta and parmesan, and nuts and seeds are offered in their own labeled bowl for allergy safety.
Our dressings include passion fruit vinaigrette, lulo and honey, lemon tahini, cilantro and lime, classic Caesar, balsamic with Antioquian honey, and a creamy yogurt and herb dressing. Vegan guests can use all but the Caesar and yogurt dressings, which is useful when planning a menu from our vegan catering range.
The main risks with catered salads are warm temperatures and wilting, and both are worse at outdoor venues. Our bar pans sit in crushed ice so the food stays below 5 °C, and we refill in small amounts every 15 to 20 minutes instead of piling a full day's greens at once.
Wet ingredients such as tomatoes, cucumbers and fruit are drained before they go out, so the leaves next to them stay dry. Each pan has its own tongs, and a card names the ingredient and its allergens in English and Spanish.
Salad amounts change a lot depending on whether the salad is the meal or a side. These are the quantities our kitchen plans with.
| Role on the menu | Greens and vegetables | Protein | Grains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side salad on a buffet | 80 to 100 g | none | none |
| Salad bar as lunch | 150 g plus 6 to 8 toppings | 120 g | 80 g |
| Main-course bowl | 180 g | 130 to 150 g | 100 g |
Boxed bowls come with dressings on the side, compostable bowls and cutlery, and they travel in our refrigerated van to offices across the valley, including catering in Sabaneta. Teams that want salads every weekday can move to our meal prep service, which plans a rotating menu by the week.
Questions and answers
Yes, every leaf and raw vegetable is washed and disinfected under Colombia's food-handling rules, Resolution 2674 of 2013. We rinse produce in running potable water, soak it for 5 minutes in a food-grade chlorine solution at about 100 ppm, rinse it again and dry it in a commercial spinner. Each batch is logged with its time and the staff member who washed it, and our cooks hold current food-handler certificates.
Yes, a salad becomes a full meal when it has 120 to 150 g of protein, a portion of grains or starch and a good fat such as avocado or nuts. Our main-course bowls weigh 380 to 420 g and include all three. Add a protein upgrade such as grilled steak, salmon or a second scoop of chickpeas for teams that train hard or eat late.
Reserve your date
Send your date, headcount, venue and any dietary needs, and we will send back an itemized salad catering quote within 24 hours. Questions can go to info@medellincatering.com.