Happy Sunday, meal preppers! As we start dipping our toes into spring and warmer weather (despite the winter storm yesterday), I wanted to share my tips for how to meal prep salads that stay fresh all week. I’m a salad all year round kind of person, and if you’ve seen any of my weekly meal plans, you know it’s rare that I don’t prep a salad weekly. And since I’ve been meal prepping for nearly a decade, I’ve learned a few tricks for keeping salads as fresh as possible throughout the week.
Take a look below at the “evolution” of my salad preps. In the 2014 and 2016 photos, you can see that I kind of just piled everything on top of the lettuce, including cheese, fruits/veggies, and protein. By 2017, I’d changed my strategy a bit and started to separate things out while keeping it all in the same container. I gotta admit, I’m cringing a little bit looking at those black plastic containers…they weren’t air tight, leaked everywhere, and cracked really easily. Well, I guess the salads didn’t really leak, but other foods definitely did! I’ll share my salad container recommendations in a minute…
…but look at my salads now! I’ve been using dedicated salad prep containers or mason jars since early 2018 and I haven’t looked back since. Well, I guess until just now 😉
Tips for Prepping Salads
Let’s start off with some basics for meal prepping salads, then we can get into more specifics on how to build them in mason jars and salad containers.
Use dedicated, quality salad prep containers
As you can see from my “evolution” of salad prep photos above, I’m now a firm believer in this approach and have long since ditched my flimsy black plastic meal prep containers. If you prep salads frequently, salad containers are 100% worth the investment for several reasons, the first of which is that they keep your ingredients separated. That leads me to my 2nd and 3rd points…
Keep wet/soft veggies, cheeses away from lettuce
The moisture in them encourages the lettuce to wilt in spots where they come in contact. And once that lettuce starts wilting, things can go downhill pretty quickly. That said, hard vegetables or beans can usually come in contact with your lettuce and be just fine. As you can see in the photos above, I put onions and black beans directly on top of my lettuce with no issues. I do the same thing with roasted butternut squash on top of a bed of kale.
Protein should generally hang out on its own
There are a couple reasons for this – you don’t want it to touch your lettuce for the same reasons listed above, but this also makes it easier to heat it up when you’re ready to eat.
Dry off lettuce before adding to containers
A salad spinner can be your best friend for this! It will help you remove as much water as possible from your greens after washing. I also like to use a small piece of paper towel under my bed of lettuce to help absorb any residual moisture.
Use fresh, prep-friendly lettuce
I hate to break it to my spinach and spring mix lovers out there, but those leaves are just really hard to keep from wilting, no matter how many of my tips you follow from this list. There’s nothing I hate more than to open up a salad after a few days in the fridge only to discover a rotten smell and brown/slimy lettuce leaves. My recommended salad greens are: green leaf lettuce (my favorite!), romaine lettuce hearts, kale, and arugula. Arugula is the least hearty of the bunch, but still holds up pretty well.
How to Build a Mason Jar Salad
The trick to a successful mason jar salad is getting the layering right! You don’t want to have wet tomatoes sitting on top of your lettuce or it will be soggy within a few hours. Instead, try this order starting on the bottom:
- Dressing – Keep the liquid at the bottom of the jar to keep it from messing with your other toppings.
- Proteins – in most cases, it’s perfectly fine for your protein to sit right in the dressing. If your dressing is super acidic, you might have some issues with it changing the texture of the meat, but I’ve never had an issue yet.
- Hearty vegetables and legumes – These are items like onions, carrots, beans, sweet potatoes, and beets that don’t break down easily and can stand up to touching protein and dressing for an extended period. If you’re making a salad or burrito bowl with rice or grains, I’d put those right on top of the meat, then hearty veggies/legumes next.
- Softer vegetables and fruits – This layer should include any wet veggies/fruits that are more tender than your last layer, and they are typically juicy or wet because they’ve been chopped. That includes things like tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and pickled items. If you’re an olive eater, I’d stick them in this layer too.
- Cheese – There’s not really a perfect place to situate the cheese in a mason jar salad, but I’ve found this is the place where I get the best results. Although it does come into contact here with wet veggies and lettuce, it holds up well and doesn’t wilt the lettuce.
- Lettuce – You may not be able to tell in the photos here, but I shove as much lettuce as I possibly can into the jar. This is where a wide-mouth jar really comes in handy, which is what I recommend using.
- Nuts and dried fruit – Finish up your mason jar salad with anything you want to keep dry, like nuts and dried cranberries. For things that you want to keep crispy, like tortilla strips or wonton strips, I recommend leaving those out of the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat. They’ll definitely lose their crunch in the fridge.
Mason Jar Salad Recipes
How to Build a Meal Prep Container Salad
If you’re still skeptical of jumping on the mason jar salad bandwagon, use a regular salad meal prep container instead! There are a ton on the market, but my favorite is this one from the Rubbermaid Brilliance line. They’re not cheap, but I’ve been using mine weekly since early 2018 and they’re still in great shape! Just a quick note on the price – you can usually get them much cheaper as part of a set of meal prep containers. Seriously, check it out! I prefer the container over the jar for a few reasons, the main one being that it’s just easier to build a salad this way. You can also eat your salad right out of the container instead of needing to dump everything into another bowl. Aside from that, I like that there’s plenty of space for lots of lettuce and toppings, plus they keep all your ingredients separated until you’re ready to mix them together.
That said, because I eat salads with lots of protein, there isn’t always enough room in the toppings tray for cheese or nuts. But you can always put the cheese in a container like this and wedge it down in with the lettuce, or just leave it on the side. Just don’t put the cheese itself directly in contact with the lettuce or protein!
Salad Container Recipes
Other Options for Salad Prep
Buffet Style Salad
This photo is actually for Southwest Turkey Lettuce Wraps, but you get the idea. Prep your greens and toppings, but keep them separate until you’re ready to eat. This is a great option if you’re working from home!
Weekly Buffet Meal Prep
I don’t often do this kind of prep, but it’s actually pretty awesome for a short week or when I know I’ll be working from home a lot. I can just grab whatever ingredients I’m in the mood for, toss them together, and get a bunch of different meal and salad combos.
Recommended Salad Prep Containers
My all time favorite salad prep container has been the Rubbermaid Brilliance Salad Containers, but there are a few other good ones out there that I’ve tried.
Other Salad Prep Essentials
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