I really enjoyed the salads in Spain. While they’re small, and intended as part of a bigger meal, I remember some lettuce and tomato salads also included some tuna. We ate salads at least once a day on my two 3 week trips to Spain.
Matzoh brei.
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Eggs and toast. Scrambled, over easy or poached.
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We searched long and hard, trust! And that tomato salad was delish: heirloom tomatoes very simply dressed. And so very, very welcome after days of fried foods and protein, and fried proteins 
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Our trips to San Diego are about a week long and once a year. By the time we get back, it is often too late to get delivery. I have learned to have various cheese, salami, and crackers to have on hand for a quick dinner with beverages once we get home. Meals after that largely depend on how I am managing jet lag.
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We always have a few different kinds of dumplings in the freezer (XLB, shumai, har gow, etc.), which also make for a super-quick meal — be it after a trip out of town… or a trip into the town’s drinking establishments 
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I’m often craving a huge salad when I return from a trip, and make it into a main course meal by adding a can of good-quality tuna fish. I’ll happily stop on the way home for lettuce if I need it.
Lettuce, black olives, tuna and a quick lemony vinaigrette (or rice vinegar and olive oil in a pinch) will do if that’s all I have. Other chopped raw veg make it even better. Radishes keep a long time in the fridge and I can often scrounge one or two up.
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I also keep (cooked) frozen meatballs in the freezer. They can make a quick meal – meatball sub or open faced meatballs sandwich with some canned or envelope gravy. Pair that with some instant mashed potatoes and can of peas and you’ve got a nice hot meal in minutes.
All of which can be done in the microwave in just a few minutes.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t been back to Spain since I left in 1984, after living there for two years. Way back then, there wasn’t the kind of “elevated” dining in Spain that’s so prevalent now and the last couple of decades. And I was a graduate student, so I wasn’t doing much eating out at what was then the higher end. Maybe things are different now.
I had a good salad almost every day, however, in cafeterias and bars. The “ensalada mixta” was on every menu at those places and included really high quality greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, sometimes olives, roasted red peppers that were delicious (sometimes piquillo peppers), and some of the amazing conserved tuna produced in Spain, which you could request to be omitted. Ensalada mixta was often one of the choices on the menu del dia, and it was also available as a separate course.
Gazpacho available around the country…vegan. Tapas such as patatas bravas, bowls of marinated olives, padron peppers, piquillo peppers, Catalan dish of peppers, eggplants, onions, “russian” potato salad with other vegetables, pisto, like ratatouille, egpplants stuffed with other veg, piperade, etc.
A huge pile of vegetables was also available as a separate course, including swiss chard/other cooking greens, chickpeas with spinach, artichokes, etc. These however, were often cooked with pork products.
Spanish dried legumes are of excellent quality. In restaurants, most often served in meat-heavy soups and stews.
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It’s very likely that what’s available at every restaurant has changed in Spain since the mid 80s, just like it has changed in other countries 
What was common in German restaurants at the time is almost impossible to find these days.
We were in Barcelona in 2016, roughly 3 decades after you’ve last been, and we didn’t do any dining that might be considered “elevated” by any stretch — just neighborhood tapas bars with very good food. The only thing missing were the ensaladas mixtas, which would’ve been very welcome indeed
I continue to be really surprised about the lack of availability that you’ve found. It’s extremely common in restaurants in both Tenerife and Mallorca - and, often, more than one version of a salad on the menu
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As I mentioned a few times, we didn’t go to any sit-down restaurants. We dined at tapas bars, standing up at bar tables or at the counter. Some had a table or two, but not many.
I should also mention that this was a brief visit, as in we didn’t actually live in Barcelona for any extended period of time, nor were we there for weeks or months.
IIRC, we had about 3 or 4 nights there, tops, so our experience was limited.
The ensalada mixta was available almost everywhere I chose to eat when I visited in 2000 and 2009.
It has been 15 years since my last visit. I haven’t been able to travel internationally for 5 years. I’m really really glad I visited Spain when I did. I took Spanish in high school and university, and I wrote several term papers on Spanish art and architecture.
I ordered an ensalada mixta from a newish tapas restaurant here in Toronto about 3 months ago.
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We were also in Barcelona in 2016 for 3 days. We ate like you did, but we did have ensaladas mixtas with shrimp and tuna.
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Too late to edit. I like adding shrimp or tuna to salads when they’re my dinner salad, but if I’ve already ingested clams, razor clams, mussels, octopus, and shrimp en masse for several days, I just want a simple salad with good tomatoes, red onion, cukes dressed in olive oil.
My HS friend is in the process of relocating to Palma de Mallorca, so I may be able to investigate the salad situation there as early as this summer
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Almost every frikken salad I had over there had tuna on it! I like tuna on my salads, but come on, give it a rest already. 
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Gotta get that proteinnnnnnn in ;-D
Protein is easy to come by in Spain, salads without tuna not so much
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Lucky friend. Not a salad as such but look out for tumbet. A sort of Mallorcan version of ratatouille. Can be served hot or room temperature (I suppose the latter is sort of salady). Trempo is a “proper” salad well worth finding (c an come with tuna though)
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