The right way to Excellent the Mason Jar Salad PLUS three easy recipes!

by HealthMatters September 7, 2024, 1:08 am 1.7k Views

When you find yourself making an attempt to get on prime of your well being targets, a tasty salad is usually an awesome go-to as a part of your wholesome consuming plan.

The difficulty is, as soon as you’re taking a salad out of its consolation zone (i.e. from the kitchen to work) it might probably find yourself a soggy previous mess. The rationale for that is that the salad tends to both go smooth from being dressed early within the day, or it might probably get squashed in transit via a plastic container.

So right this moment we’ve a step-by-step information for getting ready a transportable salad utilizing the common-or-garden mason jar.

Why a mason jar is nice for a packed lunch

It has a significantly robust lid (so no leaking dressing).
The glass is robust so in contrast to plastic it gained’t get flattened or squashed in your bag.
You may add the dressing to the underside of the jar away from the lettuce, which implies no extra soggy lunches.
The robust seal and the glass preserve issues recent so you can also make salads to eat for the subsequent 3-4 days and they’ll preserve nicely.

In case you can’t get your fingers on one, any massive glass jar will do – resembling a pasta sauce jar.

Observe our step-by-step plan for a fast and simple lunch in minutes:

Make a easy dressing

This goes on the underside of the jar so to simply shake the salad up and dump it into your bowl at lunchtime.
You should use any salad dressing that you simply like however in case you are utilizing packaged dressing all the time learn the label as these can have numerous sugar/salt/oil.
Maintain it easy with 2 tbsp olive oil + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar + salt + pepper.

Get our 5 Completely Tasty (and Wholesome) salad dressings right here

Add crunch

An vital a part of a great salad is texture. Add some crunch to offer your salad some pizzazz.
This may sit within the dressing so it must be robust sufficient to deal with some slight pickling, particularly if the salad might be saved for a number of days.
Some concepts for crunch: diced purple or inexperienced capsicum, chopped tomatoes, corn, chopped shallots, diced cucumber, flippantly steamed broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, asparagus.

Pack within the color

The entire level of a wholesome salad is to pack in as a lot goodness as potential and now could be your probability to load up the jar with color and flavour.
It may very well be: roasted onions, grated carrot, roast pumpkin or candy potato, mushrooms, cress, kidney beans, chickpeas, chopped zucchini, peas, chopped peach or pears, pesto, purple onion, brown rice, wholegrain pasta, or wholemeal couscous.

Pop in some protein

To maintain you fuller for longer, add in some protein now. This may cease you reaching for the biscuit jar come 3pm.
We love: a chopped boiled egg, some poached hen, some slices of roast beef, a leftover hen thigh or drumstick, 2 tbsp crumbled feta, grilled haloumi, grated cheddar, tuna chunks, leftover roast lamb.

Prime it off with greens, nuts and seeds

Bulk up your salad and add extra crunch by including your favorite salad leaves on the finish, together with any nuts and seeds that you simply get pleasure from.
Saved away from the dressing these will keep crisp and recent till you’re able to tuck in.
Suppose: child spinach, rocket, cos lettuce, raddichio, any salad leaf combine, cashews, chopped almonds, pumpkin seeds or chia seeds.

Then simply shake it out

When you find yourself able to serve, merely take away the lid, tip the jar the other way up and shake it out onto a plate. Or it can save you on washing up and eat it straight from the jar.