Healthy Mason Jar Salad

This recipe was based on a Pinterest post for a yummy looking Mediterranean salad that I wanted to make one week. Will decided to morph it into a slightly altered Mason Jar salad and we've been eating variations of it for lunch ever since! Based on the ideas from our original Mason Jar Salad, this salad was a combination of quinoa, pea pods, carrots, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, grilled chicken, spinach, feta, and balsamic vinaigrette. From that original idea, these salads have continuously morphed to include regular tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, other cheese (like goat and havarti) and a variety of dressings (including TJ's feta dressing). We have mixed and matched ingredients depending on what's on sale, what looks intriguing, and what we're craving. The core ingredients that have remained are the quinoa and the spinach--everything else has become a variable. Will really likes malleable recipes, so creating Mason Jar salads really suits him!

What's probably best about Mason Jar salads is the fact that when you dump them into a bowl or on a plate, they come out as a perfectly formed salad! I know I'm a messy eater, so I have to eat mine in a bowl, but Will is brave enoughto eat his out of the jar, without making a mess! I'm so jealous of his skills. These can also store for days, although we don't have a plethora of Mason Jars on hand at the moment, so we just make ours the night before after washing the jar from that day. They're really easy to get creative with and with the quinoa and chickpeas, particularly filling for a lunchtime salad without feeling heavy. So skip the salad bar and give these a shot!

Healthy Mason Jar Salad (serves 1)
Listed from the bottom up
Balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Chopped carrots
Chopped snap pea pads
Grilled chicken (optional)
Chickpeas
Sunflower seeds
Feta cheese
Quinoa
Spinach

Begin with the dressing and stack the ingredients one-by-one up the jar until filled 3/4 full. Fill the last 1/4 with spinach, then refrigerate until ready to eat! Serve in the jar or flipped out into a bowl.




The original recipe called for pea pods, sundried tomatoes, spinach, kalamata olives, crumbled feta, and balsamic vinaigrette.