Salad is great, but wouldn't it be nice if you had the perfect grab-and-go kind?
Lexi Davidson of Lexi's Clean Kitchen has the perfect solution: salad in a mason jar.
While there are some nuances in the order of how your salad is layered, the basic rule of thumb is that you want to layer your ingredients in terms of their moisture content, and density (as in–how heavy they are).
Layer in the wettest ingredients first. And then, in ascending order, move all the way up factoring in how hardy an ingredient is (such as how absorbent they are) and how heavy they are. You want the heaviest ingredients to be at the bottom so they do not compact the salad.
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Almost always, the mason jar-layered salad starts with the salad dressing and ends with the lettuce, and then what goes in between will depend on how each ingredient plays with one another.
Here is a general rule of thumb when it comes to layering a salad in a mason jar:
Layer 1: The salad dressing
Layer 2: Hardy veggies or fruit with high moisture content (the wettest and heaviest on the bottom)
Layer 3: Softer veggies or fruit
Layer 4: Protein (if using) or grains
Layer 5: Cheese, seeds, nuts. Ideally, this layer is a “dry” layer between the salad ingredients and the lettuce. It is best to not have anything wet touching the lettuce as that will cause it to wilt.
Layer 6: Little Leaf Farms Greens / lettuce
Again, depending on the density and moisture of your ingredients, you may layer them a bit differently, so make changes where necessary.
