Make Healthy Lunches – Mason Jar Salads

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Its Sunday and that means its time to have a quick inventory of what we have for this weeks lunches. This past week I gave the mason jar salad idea a try and I loved that it was ready to grab and go. If you are making one salad you might as well chop up the ingredients all at once and put it into 5 jars to be prepared.

 

Start with clean mason jars. I experimented with wide jars and narrow to see what I prefer. Also different lid options are available. In the past we have taken juices in mason jars and found the metal ring lids to be a pain to fumble around with when you are on the go. The white lids are easy to find where ever you purchase mason jars.

I noticed that the wide mouth jars fit an apple sauce container perfectly in the neck. This way you could put the salad dressing in separately or you could bring croutons without them getting soggy. How cool is that!

Alrighty, lets see what salad fixings we have in the fridge and get the cutting board and favourite knife. There is so many variations to this that you could make a different salad every day.

Here are my favorites…

Now we add the layers of salad to the jars. If you don’t happen to have an apple sauce container for your salad dressing, you simply put the dressing in the bottom of the jar.

Put the heavier items on the bottom like peppers and cucumbers. Lighter things on top.

Anything that would be your toppings normally would go close to the top. Olives, cheese, nuts and seeds. Lettuce goes fairly close to the top and stays very fresh and crisp. Also the idea of having the salad dressing on the bottom is so that when you pour it out into a bowl in the staff lunch room the dressing is drizzled on at the end. However, I would skip the bowl (and the staff room) and consider just shaking it before you eat it and eat it out of the jar. Saves dirtying a dish and talk about fast food!

I love mason jars, I love not having to chop up a salad every day of the week. I would definitely recommend making your lunches ahead on Sunday so you can avoid the temptation to run for a burger drive thru at lunch. Grab your mason jar salad and go find a patch of grass to sit on. Kick off your shoes and really take a moment to relax and enjoy your lunch.

Have a great week!

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• Choose a dressing
• Vegetables: tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, celery, peppers, onions, carrots
• More Veggies: mushrooms, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, avocado, peas
• Protein: chickpeas, black beans, edamame, boiled eggs, tuna, salmon, ham, bacon, chicken, shredded cheddar, feta
• Starch: cold rice, pasta, couscous, quinoa, croutons (keep separated)
• Herbs: basil, mint, parsley, chives
• Dried Fruit: raisons, apricots, cranberries
• Fruit: mango, strawberries, blueberries, apples, grapes
• Toppings: chopped walnuts, sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, olives, pickled beets
  

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