Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Salad in a Jar!


This spring, my friend, Karin, had the idea to create some pre-made salads "in a jar"
that we could grab and eat for lunch or use as a side dish for dinner.
We both used Pinterest to find variations on the theme.
 To extend the fun, we even went grocery shopping together prior to assembling our salads!
What?! Who does that?

We chose to make 5 different salads, we took home 2 of each recipe
for a total of 20 salads made in one afternoon!
We made
Taco Salads
Strawberry poppy seed salads
Chicken Cobb Salads
Quinoa Fruit Salads
Quinoa Vegetable Salad

In all, it was a fantastic venture!  
The end goal was met: we ate more salads when we prepared them ahead!
We've since made them together one other time and 
I made them with my Freezer Friends as well.

Here are some tips if you want to do this yourself:
1) Use grape tomatoes so that they don't get soggy
2) Layer the toppings on the bottom of the jar then stuff as many greens in the top as you can.
3) When you serve the salad, turn it upside down into the serving dish.
3) Skip dressing in the jar - just dress it when you eat it.
4) If you make taco salad, put the nacho strips in a baggie on top so that they stay crisp
5) The non-greens salads (quinoa) worked really well, 
just like you'd buy in a deli but they didn't last as long
6) toppings that worked well were: carrots, snap peas, blue cheese & boiled eggs.
7) Our favorite greens were a combination of swiss chard, spinach, red leaf lettuce and purple cabbage
8) prior to assembly, you pretty much set up a salad bar on the kitchen counter 
with all the toppings first and a huge bowl of greens last. 
We walked through with our individual jars gradually filling them up!


5 comments:

Karen said...

Beautiful salads. I have seen these on Pinterest but always wondered how long they would last. Also, what size jars did you use?

Rhoda said...

Fun idea! And pretty, as usual. Do the friendships come with the salads? ;) Miss you!
P.S. I did do a version of it with plastic containers, as inspired by you and your refrigerator organization. I was getting so stuffed on veggies that I couldn't eat all I put into my daily allotment. Good feeling though! It was also a learning experience in sogginess--I like your tips of what to put on the bottom. :)
PPS. I tried to comment the other day on your tire blog, but my phone was acting up. Of course, I saved the picture though! Way cute. Miss the sweeties. Oh, and Cliff's bike shadow was way fun!

Miss G said...

Really fun! You two are so cute and I LOVE that you went shopping together!! Did it feel like being in college? love you, Kelly

Anonymous said...

Yum!
Those taco salads are hard to beat.
And so handy!
Thanks honey!
CLIFF

Anonymous said...

So Fun!! I loved reading about the "salad jar party," and seeing your great pictures!! Your "salad" and "freezer friends" buddies are a great idea!

Good testimonial, Cliff!
Mums