Ideas, Thoughts and Insights from My Mind

As I sit here eating my 7th salad-in-a-jar I realized I haven’t updated anyone on the results! So here goes:

Recap:
On 7/1 I made 5 salads in jars, based on reading blog posts here and here. The theory is that you can make your lunch for the week on Sunday and have a self-contained salad (dressing and all) that stays fresh for meals all 5 days of the week. Here’s how things worked out:

Monday – Salad #1: As you would expect, everything was fresh and delicious. Almost as if I’d made it fresh 20 minutes before eating it. Color was great. Texture was great – nothing went mushy.

Tuesday – Salad #2: Pretty much the same story as Monday. The shaved Parmesan cheese was all stuck together and while it tasted good, had a bit of a wet texture that didn’t go over well with me.

A few weeks ago I noticed some blog posts here and here about making salad in a mason jar – and having it last all week without spoiling or getting soggy. I was intrigued. During the work week, salad is one of my default lunches. I eat it a lot. And I can spend anywhere from $8 – $15 depending on where I go and what I get. so I had two questions:

1. Could I save money by doing this?
2. Would I really enjoy the taste of salad in a jar on Friday – when it’s been sitting in the refrigerator for a week?

Startup costs are minimal, thank goodness. Just $10.44 for 12 quart-size, wide-mouth mason jars (some bloggers say use a pint but seriously, this is my entire meal not a side salad – I need a little more). In hindsight, I also should get a salad spinner to get the water out of the lettuce. Just not something we have in our kitchen.
I stick with pretty similar ingredients in all of the salads to simplify the first week but the options would be about as limitless as your imagination. Here’s my process.

Step 1: Start with dressing.

You have to start with the dressing and the most important thing to remember is it CANNOT touch the lettuce. Then you get a disgusting sludge. I used 5 different dressings – all reduced fat (but none fat-free. Dressing shouldn’t be fat free.)