Chances are you ate way, way too much yesterday. While visions of stuffed turkeys, custard pies, mashed potatoes and candied yams still swirl through your hazy, food-soaked brain, try to focus on this: recovery.

Save the leftovers for tomorrow and the next day, and count today as sort of foodapalooza down time.

There are a million ways to lighten the food load, but if we had to pick one of the best, we'd pick Aloha Salads.

The locally owned salad eatery started small in 2007 with a little drop-in spot in Kailua. Then, then it caught on like crazy, and now there are three locations — Kailua, Kahala Mall and Kapolei — with plans for two additional locations in 2010.

At the Kahala Mall location (where Orange Julius used to be), it's the fresh veggie line that catches your eye — the colors, the options, the freshness.

Owners Chris and Sarah Lufrano use all locally grown produce to make their salads, and Chris Lufrano even picks up the produce himself from various local farms. And it shows. The vegetables and other toppings — eggs, meats and cheeses — are all perfectly crisp, sweet, tangy or juicy.

Last week, the jicama was so incredible, I considered asking for a salad of just that. I resisted, and instead chose the Paniolo Salad ($8.95), a local take on a Southwestern salad with romaine hearts, corn, black beans, jicama (which kickstarted a jicama phase that still hasn't run its course) diced tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, green onions and white cheddar cheese, all topped with a barbecue ranch dressing.

Delicious? Yes. Fresh? Absolutely. Perfect? It would have been if I had added a protein — steak or chicken — to sort of boost the dish to something a bit more substantial.

Any salad on the menu can be supplemented with a protein, but adding on isn't cheap. It's an additional $4.50 for 'ahi or tiger shrimp, $3.25 for turkey breast, $3.50 for salami or steak and $2.95 for chicken breast. At those rates, a salad could end up costing as much as $13.45, which isn't exactly fast-food prices.

But this isn't fast food. Not really. But spending $15 on lunch at the food court takes some getting used to.

To get the best bang for your buck, I'd go with the beef. On a salad, that is. The Aloha Passion Salad ($7.95) comes with red grapes, apples, walnuts, cranberries, mangoes and blue cheese — add steak, and it's an honest-to-goodness meal.

Aloha Salads offers 13 signature salads, as well as a long, long list of ingredients to let you build your own salad.

Feel like artichoke hearts, lychee, won-ton strips, bean sprouts and tofu topped with a papaya seed vinaigrette? You can have it for $8.75. Or go less light (though still much lighter than that feast you're still digesting) with a combination more like this: North Shore field greens, tomatoes, avocado, bacon, croutons, steak, provolone cheese and ranch dressing for $11.

For $7.50, salad builders get their choice of lettuce — North Shore field greens, romaine hearts, baby spinach — four of 44 toppings, one of nine cheeses and one of 21 dressings, with the option to add protein (14 kinds) for an additional charge.

Aloha Salads also offers nine signature submarine sandwiches ($5.75-$7.50) from classic tuna to pastrami to vegetarian to my favorite: the PB&H, creamy organic peanut butter and slices of bananas drizzled with clover leaf honey. It's small-kid-days nostalgia.

Aloha Salads' Kailua and Kahala Mall locations are mostly takeout joints (seating is limited), but its newest location in Kapolei has a full seating area — in case you need to sit a while after eating, but chances are, you won't have to.