Fitness Friday || Tips for Making Salad-In-A-Jar

Welcome to Fitness Friday #61

Celebrating the one thing we all have in common. A passion and commitment for living a healthy lifestyle.

I can’t believe it’s Friday! Have you ever had a week that just seemed unusually time crunched? That was this week for me. It seems like I was constantly having to choose either or…either blog or run (I ran), either read or sleep (I read), either workout or drive your daughter and her friends to a volleyball game (I drove). See what I mean?

Speaking of time crunched. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you’re not surprised when I say my latest obsession is Salad-In-A-Jar. Salads are one of my favorite meals but I don’t always have time to make them during the week. SIAJ has turned out to be the perfect solution. Convenient, healthy and tasty. What else could you want from a meal? I’ve always liked Mason jars and there is just something fun about preparing and eating meals in them.

This week Chad and I prepared 14 meals. 2 recipes (5 of both varieties) and 4 Lazy Lasagna Meals-In-A-Jar.

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean, how long can a salad really stay fresh and crispy? This is my second week of preparing SIAJ to have for some of the meals during the week and they have all stayed as fresh as the day they were made for up to 5 days. They may last longer but I’ve been preparing them in batches of 10 so between my husband and I there haven’t been any left beyond 5 days.

Tips:

• Use wide mouth jars. They’re easier to fill.
• Use pint jars for side salads.
• Use quart jars for meal size salads. I like a lot of greens so I use the quart jars.
• Use a combination of greens (see specifics below). Make sure to wash and spin dry thoroughly.
• Avoid chopped tomatoes. I use whole grape or cherry tomatoes.
• Easily tweaked for individual preferences. For example, this week Chad wanted extra quinoa and I wanted extra garbanzo beans or edamame.
• Make at least 2-3 varieties for the week with 5 of each.
• Leave a little room at the top for shaking/mixing if you want to eat out of the jar.
• Assemble each step for all jars instead of completing one jar at a time.
• Easy to adapt for most salad recipes.
• Specifically for the quinoa salads, add the dressing to the quinoa before adding the quinoa mixture to the jars.
• Have out all the ingredients needed before you begin layering.
• Kids are great jar fillers.
• If you eat them around other people be prepared for curiosity and a lot of questions.
• Salads will keep longer in the refrigerator if the ingredients are as dry as possible before layering them in the jars. For example, canned beans should be rinsed, drained and patted dry before adding them to the jars.

The most amazing thing about the lasagna. I tweaked the recipe slightly and my kids loved it. (Note: My kids are the pickiest eaters ever.) Perfect meal on a busy night instead of grabbing fast food and makes a nutritious snack when they get home from school.

Recipes I’ve made over the past 2 weeks:
Adapted from  The Yummy Life

Asian Quinoa Salad (greens included shredded cabbage and baby spinach)
Mediterranean Quinoa Salad (greens included baby spinach and romaine)
Fiesta Quinoa Salad (greens included shredded cabbage, baby spinach and romaine)
Lazy Lasagna

I want to come up with my own recipes for:

Overnight Oats In A Jar.
Greek Salad In A Jar

Finally, we do the prep on Sunday. Yes, it takes about an hour and a half to 2 hours to prepare 14 jars. Having convenient, tasty and nutritious meals when life is hectic and busy is worth every minute of prep time.

Have you ever tried Salad In A Jar? Do you have a favorite recipe? Do you think it’s worth the time? What would your family think about eating out of a jar?

Link up and check out the great health and fitness blogs for inspiration, motivation, tasty recipes and stories of determination and accomplishments!

Tagged: #FitFluential, Fit Approach, Fitness Friday, food and drink, nutrition, on the menu, plant-based diet, recipes, Sweat Pink, vegan, vegetarian