Yes and I agree with the dictionary quotes from the article. It seems to me that there are indeed multiple distinct meanings to the word "salad". I'd say that a potato salad is a different class of food from a green salad.

If one attempts to have a single definition stretched over all the meanings, then you indeed get a definition that is way too broad that includes soups and sandwiches, which is ludicrous. But it's quite common for a single word to have multiple senses, let's just go with that.