Description
Meal prep salad jars are a great way to have easy healthy lunches all week long. The key is in how you layer the ingredients to prevent having a soggy salad. Put your dressing on the bottom with hard/crunchy veggies. Then add your protein (beans, quinoa, chicken, or hard-boiled egg), avocado rolled in chia seeds, then greens, and top it off with seeds or something crunchy. Use this as a base recipe then make it your own. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 carrot, julienne cut or shredded
- 1 cucumber, chopped into cubes
- 2 watermelon radishes, thinly sliced
- 10–15 grape tomatoes, cut in half
- 1 cup of cooked quinoa
- 1 (14-ounce can) garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 avocado, cut into cubes
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds (or enough to coat the avocado pieces)
- 4 big handfuls of mixed greens
- 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, dry toasted in a skillet on your stovetop for 5 minutes
- Honey Mustard Salad Dressing (or dressing of your choice)
Instructions
1. Prepare your veggies. I like to julienne cut or shred my carrots, chop the cucumbers, and slice radishes on a hand-held mandoline. Use any method you like to prepare your veggies, and remember to mix up the textures to keep your make-ahead salad jars interesting.
2. Always add your dressing to the bottom of your salad jar, then layer in hard/crunchy veggies such as cucumbers, radishes, and carrots.
3. Next add your protein. In this case quinoa and garbanzo beans. Add chicken or chopped hard-boiled egg if desired.
4. Slice or chop your avocado and roll it in the chia seeds to prevent it from oxidizing. Add those on top of the protein.
5. Finally, add your greens and top them off with pumpkin seeds, and put the lids on.
Meal prep salad jars without any dairy, eggs, or meat will keep in the refrigerator for 5 days. If you add dairy, meat, or hard-boiled egg, your salad jars will keep for 3 days in the fridge.
