Salad in a Jar - Smoothstyle Dance Studio

Salad with Rice, Chickpeas, & Salsa from back to her roots

Thanks to the back to her roots blog, I have been experimenting with making Salad in a Jar for the past 4 weeks. This week, I made my own recipe and thought it was time to share this great idea with everyone.

I like vegetables, particularly raw vegetables, but the prep time required to make fresh salads has always prevented me from eating as much as I’d like. Now, I eat a fresh salad every day without the prep time. I spend about an hour a week preparing these salads, as well as cutting up raw veggies to have with hummus for snacks, and I now enjoy veggies every day all week.

The salad-in-a-jar concept works for a couple of reasons:

The layering technique is important. By keeping the dressing away from the greens, nothing gets soggy.
The jars work like crispers: cold air-tight environments that keep contents fresh for a full week.

What You’ll Need

6 Glass Mason Jars with lids. I use the 500mL jars; these make a meal-sized salad. You can get these at Walmart.ca, Kitchenalia, Home Hardware….
Salad Ingredients
Enough fridge space to store the jars for the week.

Method

Dressing goes into the jar first. Then, layer on anything that can soak up the dressing, like quinoa or rice.
Next, layer in cut veggies, nuts, seeds, cheese, etc.
Finally, stuff the top of the mason jars with your greens of choice. Be sure to pick out any wilted greens before placing these into the jars.
Seal the jars and refrigerate.
When you’re making lunch to take to work, or when you’re ready to have a salad, take one of the salads out of the fridge, remove the lid, and turn it upside down in your salad bowl. The dressing will drip down and mingle with the greens. Scoop the salad out into the bowl and enjoy.
If you like meat or hard-boiled egg on your salad, keep it separate and top the salad once you have it in your bowl.

Recipes

You can make any salad this way, but here are some ideas.

I’ve made three of the four recipes from the back to her roots blog and they are all excellent. The two with fruit are my favourite.

I have had success with these of my own creation:

Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets, Feta, & Walnuts

Spinach with Roasted Beets, Feta & Walnuts

Yield: 6 500mL jars

Ingredients

3 red beets, roasted, peeled, and chopped into 1/2-inch chunks
3/4 cup chopped raw walnuts
250 mL crumbled feta cheese
1/2 c. cooked quinoa (makes 1 cup when cooked)
baby spinach

Dressing

In a small jar, shake together:

1/3 c. olive oil – try a flavoured one
1/3 c. apple-cider or white-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Salt & fresh-ground pepper to taste

Assembly

Place ingredients in the mason jars in this order:

3 T. dressing
1/6th of the quinoa
1/6th of the chopped red beets
1/6th of the feta
1/6th of the chopped walnuts
baby spinach leaves

I think dried cranberries would be a good addition, too, but I didn’t have any on hand this time.

Romaine with Pears, Feta & Quinoa