I was curious to see if all those Pinterest pins I’ve seen lately for salad in a jar actually work. I could go read someone else’s opinion but I always like to be difficult and try it myself. I am sure everyone has a science to how to shove all those veggies in the jar so it stays fresh best, but that would have been a bit too easy. I’ll share my method and reasoning below.
How I made my salad in a jar.
I love eating salads but they take so much work so I don’t tend to make them for lunch that much. I had the idea that if I bought all the ingredients and made up several salads ahead of time I would be much more likely to eat them, so I bought my produce and started chopping.
I decided to try the salad in a jar method because I’ve used regular containers before and the salad tends to dry out or go bad faster, likely due to how much air is in the container. The jar method is designed so there isn’t as much air, which means your salad should stay fresher longer, but did it?
I made 5 salads – 1 for lunch, 1 for my husband, and 3 for my experiment. I changed each one up a little bit, adding different homemade dressings, fruits, veggies, and seeds. I layered it, starting with the dressing, then adding fruit and seeds, then veggies, then cheese, then lettuce.
Did salad in a jar work?
Day 1 my salad was spectacular. Day 2 my salad was spectacular, and day 3 my salad was still spectacular. The quart size jar made a great lunch salad that filled me up and kept me full. By putting the salad dressing on the bottom and the lettuce on top I was able to keep the lettuce from getting that slimy wilted texture it tends to get when it it sits in dressing. I added the fruit to the bottom so it would absorb some of the balsamic dressing and give it a nice tangy flavor. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Then I put the cheese right below the lettuce so it wouldn’t touch the dressing and get all gunky. I used both soft cheese (Stilton) and a hard cheese (Kerrygold Dubliner) with great results.
I also found it was so much easier to make sure I ate a healthy lunch, wait, eat lunch at all if we are being honest, and am already planning my Monday veggie chopping session to put a week’s worth of salads in the fridge. Will days 4 and 5 stay just as crisp?
**Updated:
Day 4 – Same great salad
Day 5 – The grapes were a bit soft.
Day 6 – I’ll pass. The whole thing was starting to get lackluster and forget the tomatoes – inedible in my opinion.
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