We’ve all seen posts by bloggers talking about parking salad ingredients in a jar and then there’s always a salad prepared in the refrigerator. I thought, “Who wants stale salad with limp greens?”

Because we’re trying to eat more healthy things, we went to the greengrocer and picked up heaps of salad things and went home. I said we’d bought so much that it might go all floppy in the fridge and as I said that out loud, in my head I was thinking, “Why not vacuum seal it in jars?”

If you have a vacuum sealer with a jar attachment like I do, this IS the way to prepare salads if you love eating them. I washed the lettuces and all the other things and placed them on the counter top. I set out 8 quart size Mason jars, a cutting board and a couple of knives. I plopped myself on a stool and cut the onions, broccoli, cucumber, cabbage, red capsicum (pepper), radishes and green beans. As I finished the chopping I’d divide the amount into the 8 jars.

When the ‘fillings’ were chopped with a couple of knives, I added the cabbage, assorted lettuces and sprouts, then covered and sucked the air right out. What you see here is 3 days old and it looks like it was just picked. Seriously.  One jar feeds two people. We tip the jar over a big bowl and shake it all out, then toss it together.

Just before serving I sliced a mushroom and then drizzled with dressing and then tossed on cheddar cheese, sunflower seeds, raisins or croutons. The resulting salad made a great meal for me.

What might have ended up with leftover bits that had to be put in the compost bin ended up being fresh every time we ate it. I made 8 jars because I thought we’d each eat one jar per day having some for lunch and dinner but we found that a large salad WAS dinner.  I’ll be doing this again for sure.

Some bloggers recommend putting the salad dressing in the bottom, then the ingredients with lettuce being the last to stuff in the jar. I thought the dressing might react to the chopped bits and since we each like a different dressing, adding it just before eating works for us.