I started making salads in jars since last year after coming across lovely pictures of mason jar salad on social media.
It’s such a great way to prep your meal in advance especially if you’re trying to eat more healthy by bringing lunches to work. Just need to get ready the ingredients the day before, arrange them in mason jars and chill in the fridge. Next day, you can just grab and go. Absolutely no hassle at all.
In this post, I just want to share more on how you can keep your salad crisp and delicious when assembling a mason jar salad. There’s no specific recipe to it as you can use whatever ingredients and toppings you like as usual.
However, a simple rule of thumb is to place ingredients that can easily go soggy or messy in the top half of the jar. Such ingredients will include leafy vegetables like baby spinach, rocket leaves and lettuce, sprouts (alfalfa/pea), croutons, mashed potato, chopped hardboiled eggs, etc. The key is to prevent the dressing and/or liquid (released from certain vegetables like cucumbers) at the bottom of the jar from ruining the more delicate ingredients.
So yes, start off with your preferred dressing at the bottom. For a 1-litre (approx. 32oz) jar, you will only need 2-3 tablespoons of dressing. Next, arrange the rest of your ingredients in layers. Start with the hardy vegetables like whole cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn and carrots. And then the delicate ones (in this case, baby spinach leaves) on top.
Of course, there are lots more of other ingredients that you can include – whatever you like to eat, really. Proteins like diced chicken, shredded roasted chicken meat, smoked salmon or carbs like fusilli pasta, soba noodles, couscous are great additions to bulk up your salad meal.
Just remember – hardy vegetables below, softer ones on top.
If you like cucumbers, I highly recommend that you use Japanese (or English) cucumbers. Regular cucumbers will water down your salad as they will release moisture over time.
Also, after you’ve rinsed your vegetables, make sure they are properly drained before putting them into jars. Otherwise, the extra moisture and liquid will easily ruin your salad too.
Before digging in, just shake the jar in all directions to toss everything up together. If you can’t finish everything at once, you can chill in the fridge for later. That’s the beauty of a mason jar salad. Quick. Easy. Convenient. Hassle free. Needless to say, healthy and nutritious too. ?? ?
What are your favourite salad toppings?
For those in Singapore, you can easily find mason jars at major supermarkets, kitchenware shops and departmental stores. You can also purchase them online via websites like Hipvan, Lazada and Redmart (get $10 RedMart Credits that you can offset from your first purchase if you sign up via the link).