2.20.2014

Salad in a jar prep

Eating healthy is hard work - prepping, chopping and assembling salads. But just like exercise, once you've done it (or eaten it!), you feel great afterwards!



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My salad in a jar made a comeback this week. Here's how I prepped my salad: (followed this and this)

Sunday ~ since I'm already cooking dinner, I also placed ~1 lb of chicken breast on the grill pan and cooked my protein.

Monday ~
Chop the romaine hearts I got from Costco. There's a bag of 6 hearts. I'm experimenting right now. The prechopped ones in the bag get old easily once opened. I've read somewhere that if I use the hearts and chop them myself then they last longer (?) ~ I used 3. But 2 would have been enough.

Cook my quinoa per package directions. I prepared 1 cup uncooked. Next time I'll only make 1/2-3/4 cup.

(If I didn't prep the chicken the night before, I can grill them on the grill pan at the same time as my Monday prep)

Chop red bell peppers (since I had some, also from Costco)

This is how I layered my salad in a jar:

1. Dressing ~ my own: 4-5 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and 1-2 tbsp evoo. Few cranks {2-3} of fresh ground black pepper.

2. Hard veges ~ shredded carrots and my chopped red bell peppers

3. Cheese and protein ~ I made two jars with these already added since my husband and I will eat them for lunch the next day. I added my chicken breast and ~2tbsp of Gorgonzola (Italian blue cheese). I also like alternating with parmesan or feta cheese. Yummm.

4. Nuts ~ I love sunflower seeds!

5. Greens ~ here goes my romaine lettuce. I packed and packed a lot in the jar. I also added half a paper towel sheet on top (maybe it will help soak the moisture from the romaine lettuce that I just washed?) ~ I don't have a salad spinner.

Now where's the quinoa? I packed it separately. It was still warm and I was impatient. Plus if I added the quinoa before the lettuce, I won't have any more space for my greens.

One other mason jar (or more) for the rest of the week:
I added my dressing, red bell peppers and shredded carrots. Then skipped the cheese and chicken. I added sunflower seeds then lettuce. This jar had more greens than the first two.

Then on a separate container: I placed my quinoa, chicken and cheese.

So yes that third container defeated the purpose of carrying one jar to work. It's a work in progress. This set-up might change.

I also made a salad for my lunch on Monday. I already spent time prepping, might as well have some for lunch the same day!



I still had tons more greens left over for dinner! We had a big side salad with our soup Monday night. So you see, 2 romaine hearts would have been enough.

I like it that my husband is ok bringing a mason jar for his lunch. I'm just looking for ways to make my prep time worth it.

We will see if it's worth prepping another salad in a jar for my Friday lunches. We also have leftovers from dinner throughout the week and I could just take those.

How about you? How do you prep your lunch or salads for the week?

***salads in a jar photo when I made them before. Sorry, no updated one as I ate them all before this post! They're that good!


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