Salad in a Jar

Yes, you read that title correctly. Some of you may have seen me talking about this already, but in case you haven't seen it or tried it - I'm here to show you.

I love a good salad. (I'm known to go to Olive Garden and just eat salad.) But, it's hard to conveniently take a salad to work... unless you put it in a jar.

Buy a mason jar, and all your salad ingredients.

Put your dressing on the bottom (it's kind of a guessing game as to how much...), and then all your toppings in after that.

I've been doing quinoa, dried cranberries, bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese. For my meat, I either use canned chicken or torn up deli meat (you better believe it's turkey, no way is it ham!)

The MOST important part of this trick is that your dressing is on the very top, and your lettuce/spinach is at the very top, with your toppings in the middle. I would say my jar is about half toppings, half lettuce. Make sure to leave some room at the top, because if it's too full, it doesn't shake up very well.

Take your jar to work (luckily I have a huge supply of plastic forks I can use up!), and when you're ready to eat, just shake it up! It usually takes a few minutes to shake up - I shake it every which way possible to mix it good enough.

Presto! I usually get some weird looks if people walk into my little office and I'm eating out of a mason jar, but they realize how good of an idea it is once I explain. :) I usually eat some crackers of some sort to go along with my salad. Either saltines + turkey pepperoni, or Cheez-its. (Fun fact: Cheez-its and Teddy Grahams are healthier than Club Crackers; no high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oil!)

(No rating for this post - healthiness and cost differ on what you use!)