Enter: Salad in a Jar.
I’ve seen this idea floating around for awhile now, so I decided to make lunch easier for myself, I’d pre-make a bunch of salads in quart-sized Mason jars and keep them in my fridge. Then I can pull one out at lunch while I’m wrangling kids or feeding the baby or hiding in my bedroom watching Mad Men, feeling like my behavior of late is suspiciously Betty Draper-ish (although I guarantee that Betty Draper never wore yoga pants in her whole life). This particular dressing (and the salad I made to go with it) is not really healthy eating-friendly. But it was delicious, and all things in moderation, right? Yeah, we totally abide by that here at Our Best Bites (my sarcastic button on my keyboard is broken…) For the dressing, you’ll need red wine vinegar, honey, stone-ground mustard, lime juice, freshly ground black pepper, kosher salt, smoked paprika, garlic, chopped onion, oregano, a pinch of white sugar (if you need it), and olive oil. Get the recipe by clicking here! For the salad, I used chopped romaine, spinach, shredded Swiss cheese…
and chopped bacon and grilled chicken breast, sliced red onions, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and sliced mushrooms.
There’s no real science to layering the salad ingredients, but you do want to make sure that the greens you’re using aren’t damp at all because it will make your other ingredients soggy. I also tried to keep moist ingredients away from things like cheese and the mushrooms to avoid the slime factor.
I filled my jars up a little bit more than in this particular picture, but just be sure to leave enough space that you drizzle dressing over the top, close the lid, and shake up the jar so you get a little bite of everything in your salad. These would also be awesome for parties–tie forks onto the jars with twine or a cute ribbon and either include the dressing in the bottom of the jar or have a variety of pre-measured dressings in little cups for your guests.
