Salads In A Jar

Recently I had come across some fun pins about salads in a jar.  I did a lot of looking into these things and thought I would give them a try.  I watched this video on how to vacuum seal your salad.  I know, it sounds weird, but it works!  I swear!  I used the Ziplock Hand Pump (I actually found it at my local Wal-Mart), a push pin and electrical tape and BOOM!  I had me some salads in a jar!

Salad In A Jar With Southwest Ranch Dressing

Here's the breakdown of what I did.  The first rule is to keep your dressing as far away as possible from your lettuce.  That's a rule that every post/pin stated and it worked for me.  The second rule is have fun with your salad combos!  I put "softer" foods at the bottom with the dressing, like beans, carrots etc. that can almost marinate in the dressing.  I sealed my jars on a Sunday afternoon, eating the last one on a Friday and it was as fresh as the day I had "jarred" it.  It is time consuming, so if you think you can crank these out in 30 minutes, you're WAY better at it than I am.  On a Saturday evening I cut up my lettuce, celery and pepper.  I cooked my chicken and blanched my corn.  Finally I drained and rinsed my black beans.  The trick is making sure you get rid of the extra moisture before you jar everything.  I used a salad spinner for my lettuce and stored it in a large container with a paper towel on the bottom and on top of the lettuce to draw out any leftover moisture.

Now for the fun part...assembling your salads!  I crammed a bunch of stuff into mine (as you can tell) and even made some dressing!  When I do this again, I'll probably use the same ingredients because it worked and well, it was yummy!!!!

Salad Layers

(in order of assembly)

2 Tbsp dressing

shredded carrots

black beans

green pepper

celery

corn

chicken

cheese

lettuce

Southwest Ranch Dressing

1 cup ranch dressing

1/4 cup salsa

1/4 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp cumin

Mix together and store in a container.

When putting your salads together, make sure to push all of your ingredients down into the jar.  I used the wide mouth quart jars and it made more than enough for me.  I wanted some croutons, so I just took some along with me to add.  I poured the salad out of the jar into a plastic bowl, added the croutons and BOOM!  Instant salad.  

In my opinion, these really are worth the time and effort in the end.  I did notice some condensation on the insides of the jars over the days, but it didn't wilt the lettuce or affect the rest of the salad.  I would say minus all the cleaning/prep of the ingredients, it took about an hour to put them all together.  I'm sure over time, I'll get faster and better at it, but they sure were handy to grab and stick in my purse before work. 

Let me know what you think, or if you make these and if you do, what you used!

 

Until next time!