Mason jar lunch

This is a guest post by Vanessa!

Confession, I love jars… I have for a long time (guests even drank out of jars at my wedding!). So when I see stuff on Pinterest that has anything to do with glass jars, I check it out. One awesome idea: Lunch in a jar!

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When I first started my job, I saw these salads in a jar and I got super excited for three reasons.

I hate getting up in the morning! So the less I have to do, the better.
I wanted to start eating more raw, fresh foods.
I love jars!!

There are TONS of these recipes going around out there in the Pinterest world but really… you don’t need a recipe. Just think of your favorite salads and boom: inspiration.

Here are the rules that I follow…

Always put the dressing on the bottom
Wet veggies/fruits first
Leave the meat out until I’m gonna eat it

So I start with a quart sized jar for a full-meal portion.

Buffalo Chicken and Ranch Salad

First, I put ranch dressing in. (I always just guesstimate, the less dressing, the more healthy!) Next, thinly sliced green onions (so that they marinade) And then, my wet veggies.. Agian, I guesstimate the amounts of veggies to my liking. I used roughly: half a tomato, a handful of match stick sliced carrots, 1/3 of a cucumber, and a 1/2 of both green and red peppers.

*While I’m prepping my veggies I’m sauteing my chicken in buffalo sauce YUM!*

Then I threw in some baby corn and fresh mozzarella.. this recipe (if you can call it that since there are no specifics!) is one salad but the trick is to do as many as you need for the week! So while I was making this salad I was using some of the same veggies to make other salads!

Wahoo! Killing like 6 birds with one stone!

(moment of truth… I didn’t feel like cleaning my whole kitchen so I just cleaned this corner and jammed everything in)

Now I’m done! I typically don’t put the lettuce in because I wash everything and my lettuce is still wet (I need a lettuce spinner!) so I put my freshly washed lettuce with some paper towels into a large ziplock baggie and let them drip dry. Then when I’m getting my lunch packed in the morning I grab a few large leaves, tear ’em up and throw ’em in. I also leave my meat out until I’m ready to eat… but that’s just me, I’m weird like that. *wink*

After all is said and done, I usually have 3 or 4 big salads for myself and 4 or 5 little side salads for my husband (since he’s on the road and can’t enjoy a big plateful of salad these are easy for him to eat out of the jar). When you’re ready to eat them give it a good shake to get the dressing all over and dump it onto a plate.

So colorful…so healthy…so fast and easy for busy mornings…what’s not to love?? – V