These Mix & Match Mason Jar Salad Recipes make healthy lunches easy – they're great for meal prep and will keep your salad fresh for days!
Why Should You Make Salad in a Jar?
Welcome to one of my fave ever meal prep posts! Today we'll learn how to build the ultimate mason jar salad – they are perfect as grab and go lunches (check out more meal prep lunch ideas here) and this post will detail how to overlap different ingredients so you can enjoy something different every day, and why you should start meal prepping your salads in jars.
One of my biggest pain points when it comes to meal prep is that I don’t like to eat the same thing every day. You don’t have to deal with meal prep fatigue if you’re strategic about the ingredients you use and opt for different dressings and combos. The variety among these five mason jar salads will have you enjoying lunch again!
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How to layer a mason jar salad
When prepping your mason jar salad, layering is key! You want to ensure you layer your jars properly so that everything stays as fresh as possible.
- Layer 1 – Dressing: The dressing should always be the base ingredient so the rest of your toppings don't get soggy. If you'd prefer, you can keep your dressing in a separate container, but I find it's easy to just shake everything up before serving. This is where you'll put the Tex Mex dressing, Greek dressing, balsamic dressing, ranch dressing and green goddess dressing.
- Layer 2 – Crisp Ingredients: The second layer is where you'll put all your crisp ingredients that aren't at risk of getting soggy. This is where you'll put the cherry tomatoes, red onion, cucumber and edamame.
- Layer 3 – Grains, Lentils & Protein: Put the grains, lentils and/or protein in next, if you're using them in your salad. The crisp ingredients will act as a barrier between the dressing and the grains or protein. This is where you'll put the chicken, chickpeas and quinoa.
- Layer 4 – Cheese: Place any cheese on top of the grains and protein to keep it from getting soggy. This is where you'll put the grated cheddar cheese and bocconcini cheese.
- Layer 5 – Leafy Greens: The leafy greens (like lettuce, baby spinach and kale) should always go on the very top, right before you add on the lid. Placing the leafy greens on top ensures everything will stay as crisp and as fresh as possible.
Mason Jar Salad Tips & Tricks
There are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind when you're preparing and enjoying your salad in a jar:
- Ingredient prep: One of my top meal prep hacks is to prep my ingredients ahead of time – that way, when I'm cooking or meal prepping, I already have my veggies cut up, and my protein and grains cooked. For these recipes, you can cook the chicken ahead of time, chop up all the veggies, make the salad dressings and cook the quinoa.
- Layer everything in order: Ensure you're layering the ingredients in the correct order (see above) to keep all the ingredients as fresh as possible.
- Shake up the jars before serving: One of the best parts of these mason jar salads is all you have to do when you're ready to eat them is give the jar a good shake, then dump everything into a bowl and dig in. You could try eating from the jar if you'd like, I just find it's easier to dump everything into a bowl or on a plate.
- Switch up the ingredients: I listed out some of my favourite mason jar salad recipes, but feel free to get creative with the ingredients. Try out different healthy salad dressings, switch up the protein and add in any ingredients you're craving or have on hand!
Frequently Asked Questions
If stored properly, most mason jar salad recipes can last 4 to 5 days in the refrigerator. Keep in mind that some ingredients stay fresher in the fridge for longer than others!
Some people eat their mason jar salads straight from the jar. A few minutes before eating, tip the jar upside down, give the jar a few good shakes and then take off the lid and enjoy! Eating out of a mason jar can be a bit tricky, so feel free to dump everything into bowl or on a plate after shaking it up.
Mason jar salads are great for weekly meal prep, since you can make a variety of options ahead of time to enjoy throughout the week – which in turn will help you save money since you won’t have to eat out for lunch or dinner! It also makes it a lot easier to eat healthier when you have salads packed and ready to go in the fridge.
In the US and Canada, the standard mason jar opening comes in two sizes: regular (2 and 3/8 inches wide) and wide mouth (3 inches wide). The wide mouth jar is generally a better choice for salads because it’s much easier to get ingredients in and out of the wider opening. The ones most commonly used for salad recipes are the pint (16 oz) and quart (32oz) size jars. I've used the 16 oz size mason jars for the recipes pictured.
You can eyeball it when it comes to how much dressing you put in each salad, but I'd say about 1 to 2 tablespoons is plenty for a single serving.
My Top 5 Mason Jar Salads
I rounded up some of my favourite salad in a jar recipes! You can also mix and match with different ingredients and dressings until you find something you love.
Tex Mex Salad Jars
Ranch Salad Jars
Caprese Salad Jars
Green Goddess Salad Jars
Greek Salad Jars
Meal prepping mason jar salads
These mason jar salads are great for meal prep. Once you've assembled your salads, they'll last in the fridge for 4 to 5 days. When you're ready to enjoy, just shake up the salad and eat it right out of the jar or dump it into a bowl and eat from there.
You can also prep a bunch of the ingredients ahead of time. Mix up the salad dressings and store them in glass containers or mason jars in the fridge for 1 to 2 weeks. You can also cook the chicken and the quinoa a couple days in advance before you're ready to prep your jars. Note that if you make the chicken and quinoa ahead of time, you should eat those salads within 2 to 3 days.
Freezing components of this recipe
While you can’t freeze salad in a jar, you can freeze components of your salads like chicken, rice, quinoa, etc. That way, when you’re ready to make your salads, your ingredients will be ready to go. Just stick them in the fridge the night before you need to use them so they can defrost.
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More mason jar salad recipes
Meal Prep Tools
- These are the mason jars I used in this recipe.
- You can get larger 32oz mason jars too!
- Grab some glass meal prep bowls if you would rather layer these salads in a different container.
- I like this salad dressing shaker to make homemade dressings easier.
- These colourful mason jar lids are so fun and perfect if you lose your lids.
- I get all my free-range chicken from Butcher Box, conveniently delivered to me frozen.
- **Get my full list of tools here**
5 Mix & Match Mason Jar Salad Recipes {Healthy Lunches}
Ingredients
Make ahead ingredients
- 1-2 chicken breasts (depends on how many jars you're making – 1 breast per two jars is standard)
- 1 cup quinoa (dry)
Tex Mex salad jars
- chicken
- cherry tomatoes, sliced
- red onion, diced
- grated cheddar cheese
- lettuce, chopped
Tex Mex dressing
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 pinch each salt and pepper
Greek salad jars
- chickpeas
- cucumber
- cherry tomatoes, sliced
- red onion, diced
- baby spinach
Greek dressing
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 pinch each salt and pepper
Caprese salad jars
- quinoa
- cherry tomatoes, sliced
- bocconcini cheese
- red onion, diced
- baby spinach
Balsamic dressing
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 pinch each salt and pepper
Ranch salad jars
- chicken
- cucumber
- cherry tomatoes, sliced
- grated cheddar cheese
- lettuce, chopped
Ranch dressing
- 1-2 tbsp bottled ranch dressing
Green goddess salad jars
- chickpeas
- quinoa
- cucumber
- edamame
- spinach
Green goddess dressing
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tbsp packed cilantro or parsley, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp sour cream
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 pinch each salt & pepper
Instructions
- Cook make-ahead ingredients: Bake chicken breasts with a little bit of olive oil, salt & pepper in a 400 F for 20 min. When cooled, dice up into 1-inch pieces. Meanwhile, make quinoa in a rice cooker – combine 1 cup quinoa with 2 cups water and cook until all liquid is absorbed.
- Mix together dressing of choice – you can use the homemade versions listed above or store-bought versions to save time. Each salad jar should require only 1-2 tbsp of dressing.
- Add dressing of choice to the bottom of a 16-oz mason jar. Layer in ingredients of choice in order of what is listed. For instance, for the Mexican jars, add in chicken, cherry tomatoes, red onion, cheese and lettuce to the jar in that order.
- Jars will keep in fridge up to 4 or 5 days. For easy meal prep, cook chicken and quinoa ahead of time up to 24 hours in advance so all you have to do is assemble.
- Serve by shaking mason jar so dressing gets distributed, then dump in a large bowl to eat. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Comments & Reviews
Colleen sommer says
The was my first time making and I was so excited. However, I found the dressing way too salty. Is it really 1/2 tsp of salt for single serve dressing recipe. I made the recipe x4 the ingredients so ended up using 2 top of salt it was soooo salty….
Taylor Stinson says
I’m going to change the recipes to include just a pinch of salt. Thanks for offering your feedback and sorry you found them too salty.
Colleen sommer says
Thanks Taylor,
With the exception of salt. Would the other ingredients/spices in the dressings 2x or 3x well?
I am a newbie to making my own dressings but I noticed your ration of oil to citrus is 1:1? I noticed in other dressing recipes I have seen 3:1 oil:citrus. Augh…not sure what to do?
Taylor Stinson says
Yes the dressings will double or triple well. My oil to citrus ratio is different because I prefer less oil and more of a pop of flavor thanks to the acid. This is my preference, I feel like 3:1 oil to acid ratio is overkill but that is my personal opinion. If you find them too acidic, you can always add more oil or a sweetener such as honey to taste. Better to add less oil than too much as you can always add more.
Karen T says
So how much of each ingredient PER JAR?!?!?!
Liv says
I made the Caprese and the Ranch salad jars for this week. I used my pressure cooker to cook the chicken breast and my Thermomix to shred it once cooked. Super easy.
But best of all so super tasty! I’m normally a soup over salad kind of person. But not anymore! This will make work lunches super easy. Thanks very much! Making the other ones for next week!
Taylor Stinson says
I’m so happy you enjoyed these two 🙂 Great idea to use your pressure cooker for the chicken!
Sunny says
I use pint and a half jars. Nice wide mouths, no curves and just enough food for a half hour lunch.
Rachel O'Neill says
Thank you so much for posting this! I love all the recipes and my daughter thinks they’re good too. She takes them to school for lunch.
Gweneth says
just a quick question, your recipe says use a 8-oz jar … seems like it should be bigger?
Taylor Stinson says
My apologies – they are 16oz jars. I did link to the correct jars in the tools section of this post 🙂
Lewis says
Pampered chef has a jar especially designed for jar salads. There is a place on the top of the jar where you can put your salad dressing.
Kenneth Gurvin says
Can I use glass jars other than Mason Jars. I save my glass spaghetti sauce, pickle, and sour kraut jars.
Would they work?
Thank you Ken
Taylor Stinson says
Yes for sure Ken! As long as they are washed and clean they will work!
Cynthia Berry says
I found this bold looking up salad jar recipes. I am looking for healthy alternatives for lunch to help with my fitness/weight loss goals. You did good with this post! It’s easy to follow, love it!
Taylor Stinson says
Thank you so much Cynthia 🙂
Megan says
Hi! I happened upon this blog when I was preparing for one of my salad in a jar parties. We had about 10 people and made the salads as a community and used your ideas. Thanks so much for posting them! We had so much fun!
Taylor Stinson says
That makes me so happy to hear Megan, that’s awesome!!! I’m so glad you enjoyed the ideas 🙂
Trish says
How does your salad party work ? Like a potluck ?