My sons are very active. It seems that my evenings are always full of running hither and yon to games and practices, and while I endeavor to always have to hot meal ready for us all to sit down and eat before we dash off to get them to their respective activities, I often find that I am not able to eat a full meal before we have to sprint from the house like it’s ablaze. Enter the jar salad. I typically make several of these on the weekend and then grab and go as I need them during the week. I eat a little something with the boys when we all sit down to dinner, and then bring the salad along to the game to enjoy as I watch. It’s like a progressive dinner for one. The beauty of this strategy is that baseball and football games last a good couple of hours. I can chew my food, taste each forkful and savor each bite with virtually no interruptions (except for the occasional pause for enthusiastic cheering!). Below, I give the “recipe” for the salad that I typically make, but these salads aren’t about following a prescription. Just use what you like and what you have! It’s a simple on-the-go meal that, in my experience, never disappoints.
Mason Jar Salad
Equipment
- Mason Jar and lid
Ingredients
- Romaine lettuce
- Arugula
- Dressing of choice I use brown mustard
- Cucumber, chopped
- Carrot, chopped
- Black olives, sliced
- Green olives, sliced
- Chutney du jour I make these seasonally – cranberry in the fall, mixed-berry in the summer, mango whenever I get the hankering – and use whichever I happen to have on hand
- Sunflower seeds
- Pepitas
- Avocado chunks
Instructions
- Chop a serving-size portion of the romaine into edible pieces. Then, dice the arugula. I like to dress the lettuce, so I mix the mustard in with these and pour it all into the bottom of the jar. If eating wilted greens bothers you, pour your dressing into the jar first, and then layer the greens on top of it.
- Layer the remaining ingredients as listed above. Substitute or add in any additional items that appeal to you. I sometimes add in leftover chickpeas after the greens or use sugar snap peas in place of the cucumber. Diced tomatoes can be added after the carrots, as can frozen corn or peas.
- When all of your items are layered into the jar, cover it and place into the refrigerator. I often make them 2-3 days ahead of time and find that they keep very well. The contents will settle somewhat so that there will be more headroom at the top of the jar then when you created the salad, but this just makes it easier to eat!
- When ready to eat, you can dump the contents onto a plate, but I just dig right into it with a fork. I mix the contents as I eat to get all of the flavors as dispersed as possible.