If you are like most people, you don’t pack a healthy lunch because it takes too long or you’re bored with eating the same things everyday. Great news: a week’s worth of layered, beautiful bright salad jar lunches can be made in just minutes!

It’s time to dig up those old Mason jars as they are the key element to this awesome meal idea. Besides the fact that using Mason jars to transport food helps you to avoid dangerous plastics and toxins leaching into your food, these jars are extremely handy and effective with meal prepping.  So what’s the point of using a jar, as opposed to a normal bowl or lunch Tupperware you may be thinking? Well, using the jar allows you to easily layer the salad with the dressing on the bottom, firmer ingredients in the middle, until finally the lightest greens on the top.

You can get creative and use any mixture of salad ingredients as long as you follow this single, most important rule: keep the greens far away from the dressing. As long as the greens stay dry, you can make a week’s worth of salads that will last in the fridge without going soggy. When you’re ready to have your salad, just shake the jar several times to mix the dressing, pour ingredients into a big bowl and enjoy.  You can eat the salad out of the jar too, but throwing it into a bowl takes way less coordination.

This is one of my favorite quick and easy salad jar recipes:

Balsamic Grilled Chicken  

Dressing: 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup orange juice, 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Layer it with: mushrooms, quinoa, cherry tomatoes, peppers, cut apples, roasted chicken, and mixed lettuce greens.

Enjoy,

Olivia