Valkyrae’s Custom Sweetgreen Salad: The Wicked Good Review
Gamers, streamers, and content creators have been absolutely taking over the food game in the last year.
From Tfue, Myth, Hafu, and more getting their orders on the Wendy’s menu, to Timthetatman getting his own signature Chipotle burrito, to Mr. Beast opening his own international burger chain – the last year and change has been absolutely massive for these types of partnerships.
One deal that flew under the radar in a major way for me, however, was Valkyrae’s custom SweetGreen salad. Why, you ask? Well, because I’ve been eating like absolute garbage for the last two years (telling myself it’s due to COVID but let’s be serious – I’m just a disgrace to human evolution) and couldn’t even tell you what the inside of a SweetGreen looks like.
Fast forward to now, and I’m facing down the barrel of like 9 weddings and two vacations out of the country this year, so Papa’s gotta slim down. I’ve been doing my best to eat healthier, so imagine my surprise when I went to go order some SweetGreen to my office this morning and noticed a familiar name on the menu.
“Valkyrae’s Extra Crispy Custom” is about 13 bucks, and contains blackened chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, raw carrots, crispy rice, spicy sunflower seeds, parmesan crisps, chopped romaine, baby spinach, and “green goddess ranch” (I’m not sure what that is). It clocks in at 635 calories, but you can chop that down to 490 if you ditch or replace the dressing (which I did, because I’m healthy as fuck).
The salad itself was filling, packed full of crispy ingredients, and had a good amount of kick to it from the spicy sunflower seeds. It was a little bitter for my tastes, and the chicken could’ve been crispier, but it satisfied and got the job done.
The Good: $13 may seem wild for a salad if you haven’t been to SweetGreen before, but it’s actually pretty packed with good stuff and is very tasty. I love crispy stuff, so this was right up my alley.
The Bad: 635 calories for a lunch salad may also seem steep if you’re watching what you eat. The dressing is pretty heavy, but easily replaceable. Luckily most of those cals are coming from a generous portion of healthy stuff. A little too bitter for my tastes.
The Verdict: Valkyrae’s SweetGreen partnership is the first (from what I’ve seen) deal between a content creator and a food franchise that breaks the mold of burgers and fries. It’s a solid lunch or dinner option, and I’d love to see more stuff like this in different varieties. Oh, and I will say that SweetGreen leads the league in promo art for their menu items that look absolutely NOTHING like the finished product. Not a knock on the salad prep because it was great, but they should really double whatever they’re paying their menu photographers.
Final Score: 3.5/5
“Valkyrae’s Extra Crispy Custom” is available as an online-only featured item at SweetGreen, and you can get yourself one at their website if you’re into that sort of thing.
