Lunch-in-a-jar!

In anticipation of starting my own job and the fact that Ryan already has one, I decided to try something new for "work lunches". I saw on A Cup of Jo (of course) about this nifty idea from The Daily Muse to take salad-in-a-jar to work. Genius. The best part is you can make your jars for the week all at once and the salad will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. No more stressing the night before or morning of about what to take for lunch. The combinations are also only limited to your imagination and pantry/fridge. The only real guidelines to keeping the salad fresh and crisp is to separate the dressing from the leaves and herbs. Place the liquid portion at the bottom with the bulkier leafy part of the salad, as your final step.

So far we've done a basil pesto pasta salad, chickpea and avocado salad, what's ever leftover salad, and we even cut up a black-bean burger patty to add bulk to the salad. I use wide-mouthed Quart Mason Jars which I found at a local craft store, but can also be ordered online or bought from the supermarket. Even though the quart-size (one litre) looks huge, it fills up very quickly especially if you leave some space at the top for shaking. My first few jars, I was so excited, I went a bit overboard and filled them right to the top, but there's still plenty of space for food if you don't. Other pros to the mason jars? They are made of glass so don't have all the nasty stuff that plastic has, they can go in the dishwasher (I wouldn't recommend putting the lids in the dishwasher though), they don't leak, and have multiple purposes besides lunch (jamming, flower vasing, storage, cookie jar etc).

And my very own salad-in-a-jar..

 

This particular week (from top to bottom), we had baby spinach leaves, pepperdews, crumbled feta, sundried tomatoes, baby cucumbers, celery and a lemon vinaigrette (I think, later, we added some of the black bean burger in there too, to bulk it up). If you want to put avocado in the salad, definitely do so but try and squeeze it between something acidic like olives in brine, lemon or lime wedges or sundried tomatoes to stop it turning brown.

Once I actually start working, I'll make some jars for my lunch but for now Ryan takes these to work 2-3 times a week and sometimes has them for dinner at home. They provide a good base to complement a meal and are super easy to just take out of the fridge and enjoy!