Mason Jar Salad: How To Make the Perfect Salad in a Jar Recipe!

Tips, Tricks, and How to's, Tutorials

Learn to make the perfect mason jar salad with this “how to” tutorial. Mason jar salads, or often called salad in a jar, are the ultimate meal prep recipe. You can prepare 5 mason jar salads on Sunday to enjoy a healthy lunch all week.

Get instant access to my mason jar salad recipe e-cookbook here! I share 19 of my best mason jar salads along with all the tips found in this tutorial.

How to Make a Mason Jar Salad

Over the last year I’ve been a mason jar salad making queen. I absolutely love making these salads and really can’t imagine life without them. There are now 100s of mason jar ideas floating around Pinterest so I’m not sure who the original mason jar salad brain child was but they are my hero. Seriously, I love you.

Through trial and error, I feel I have become quite the expert on making mason jar salad recipes so I wanted to do a follow up tutorial to the mini one I did a year ago.

If you don’t have time right now to read through the tutorial, or maybe you’re a video person, then check out my quick (less than 2 minute) video I put together on making a Greek Chicken Mason Jar Salad.

Before I get to the step by step instructions, and recipe round up, I want to first go over some common questions I get every time I post a new mason jar salad recipe. Hopefully, I get them all but if you have a question you don’t see answered here leave a comment below and I will respond with an answer.

Common Mason Jar Salad Questions

What size mason jar do you use?

I use wide mouth quart size (32-ounce) mason jars for my mason jar salad recipes. These make for a lot of salad so if you wanted to use a smaller size (16-ounce) you certainly could. But. 32-ounce is the size I most often use. Whatever size you use I recommend getting the wide mouth mason jars. This makes it much easier to fill up and dump out the mason jar salad ingredients. No matter what size you use always follow the same steps for layering the ingredients.

Where can I buy mason jars?

You can purchase mason jars from any grocery store. I’ve seen them at Target, Walmart, Wegmans, and even at Rite-aid. However, all size mason jars can be purchased on Amazon for great prices.

Get the 32-ounce wide mouth mason jars on Amazon.

Get the 16-ounce wide mouth mason jars on Amazon.

Also, I recommend picking up a package of plastic mason jar lids. Again, you can purchase these on Amazon. Mason jars come with metal lids but those will eventually rust. The plastic lids work great!

Why do you use mason jars and not plastic containers?

I’ve used both plastic and glass jars to store salads in and I prefer mason jars for a few different reasons. First, in my experience, I feel the mason jars keep my salad fresh for much longer. I ate a mason jar salad 7 days after making it and it was just as fresh as the first day. Can’t say the same for plastic containers. You get a better seal with a mason jar than with a plastic container so that helps to keep food fresh longer.

Also, the whole appeal (at least to me) behind a mason jar salad is that you can store the salad dressing in the same container. Therefore you don’t have to worry about remembering to bring dressing with you. Or bringing dressing to work only to have other people use it and when you need it the dressing is gone. Just sayin…if you work in an office you know that happens.

Bringing salad dressing with you might not be an issue for some, but for me it was. I can’t tell you the number of times I would bring a salad with me and forget the salad dressing. Mason jars are the perfect shape that let you put the salad dressing on the bottom and layer the rest of the ingredients on top so you never have to worry about forgetting dressing. I was never able to successfully do this with plastic containers. This brings me to next common question…

Doesn’t the lettuce get soggy?

I can honestly say that in years I’ve been making mason jar salads I never had soggy lettuce – not one time. Even the times my jar tips over in my bag, and the dressing sneaks up to the lettuce, everything is still fine. The key to non-soggy lettuce is to layer ingredients correctly and keep the dressing and lettuce away from each other. I will go over all that below.

Do the ingredients layered in the dressing get soggy?

In order for a mason jar salad to work you need to have hearty vegetables acting as a barricade between the dressing and lettuce. I typically use tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions. Basically, these vegetables end up pickling in the dressing so any vegetable that you think would taste good pickled would be fine in the barricade layer. By the end of the week these are delicious. The tomatoes pickle the best and are definitely my favorite part of the salad.

I don’t like tomatoes, what other vegetable can I use?

Like I said above any hearty vegetable that you think would taste good pickled would do fine in the dressing. I give more examples of hearty vegetables to use in the “how to” instructions below.

How long do mason jar salads last?

I make these salads for work so I always eat them within 5 days. So at minimum they will last at least 5 days. However, I have had one 6-7 days after I made them and they were still fresh. So depending on the ingredients mason jar salads can last 5-7 days in the refrigerator.

Doesn’t the avocado turn brown?

I use avocado in my mason jar salads sometimes, especially when I make cobb salad. Whenever I do, I always squirt lime or lemon juice on it before I layer it into the mason jar salad. That combined with being in the mason jar seems to do the trick with keeping the avocado green. I think the mason jar does a great job of keeping air out so this helps to keep the avocado fresh as well.

Do you vacuum seal your mason jars?

No I do not. I just fill them with ingredients, put the top on, and twist it closed. I have never had an issue with freshness doing it this way so I personally do not see a need to use a vacuum seal.

How do you eat the mason jar salads? Do you eat them straight from the jar?

I shake the salads then dump into another bowl I bring with me. When I first started to eat these I tried eating them from the jar but it was awkward for me. I prefer putting the mason jar salad into a bowl. Now some people think that is too much work or too many bowls to bring to work. But honestly it doesn’t bother me at all. I just grab a medium to large glad container or use a glass bowl at work. I find the benefits of eating a fresh healthy delicious salad every day outweigh the annoyance of bringing an extra bowl with me.

Do you have to use a mason jar? Or can you use any glass jar?

I have only used mason jars but as long as the jar has a tight fitting lid I am sure any glass container would do.

Are these salads difficult to transport? They seem heavy.

Glass is certainly heavier than plastic but I would not consider these so heavy that they become a burden to transport. Again, it is a small price to pay for eating a healthy homemade lunch everyday.

Are there better dressings than others to use?

I think it completely depends on your taste. I have used both vinaigrettes and creamy dressings for my salad in a jar recipes. My personal favorites are the vinaigrettes because I love the way the tomatoes and other vegetables taste after they have been marinating all week. But the creamy dressings are good too. The thing to keep in mind with the creamier dressing is you have to shake the jar a bit more to get it all out. Not a biggie but just one difference between the creamy and vinaigrettes dressings.

Again, if I missed any of your questions let me know if the comments and I will update the post as needed.

Okay, now let’s get to the “how to” part of this mason jar salad tutorial.

Layer 1: The Dressing

The first layer of the mason jar salad is always the dressing. You can use any type of dressing you like. As I said I prefer a vinaigrette dressing but I do like a creamy ranch and blue cheese too. It completely depends on your preference. Also, like I said before, the vinaigrette dressing will come out of the mason jar easier. If you use a thicker dressing you will have to give it a good shake and probably use your fork to scrape it out. I use between 2-3 tablespoons of dressing. Currently I use bottle dressings but you can certainly use homemade dressing if you want.

Layer 2: Hearty Vegetables

This layer is very important because it’s used to shield the dressing from the lettuce and other vulnerable ingredients. In this layer you’d use vegetables that can hold up to being in dressing for a week or so. Like I said think vegetables that would do well in a marinade or pickled. Vegetables I have used are tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, celery, carrots, peppers, and any other hearty vegetable you like.

Layer 3: Beans and Other Less Hearty Vegetables

This layer is where you’ll put beans and other less hearty vegetables like mushrooms, zucchini, sprouts, green beans, corn etc if you choose to use them. If you are using an avocado then that would be in this layer too. Basically, this layer acts as a second defense between the dressing and lettuce. You don’t want this layer marinating in the dressing but it will be fine should some of the ingredients get exposed.

Layer 4: Pasta and Grain Layer

This layer is where you add your pasta, quinoa, and/or other grain if using. At this point the other 1-2 layers should keep the dressing away from this layer. However, if by some chance dressing does make its way to this layer no worries everything should be fine. For pasta and grains you can use any type of pasta, rice, couscous, and/or quinoa. Really anything would work so get creative.

Layer 5: Protein and Cheese

In this layer I put meat, eggs, and cheese. I like to keep these ingredients away from the dressing because I do not feel they do well if sitting in dressing for a couple days or more. If you are using shrimp or other seafood I would add those ingredients to this layer. For cheese, I have used blue cheese crumbles, feta cheese, goat cheese, shredded cheese, and cubed cheese in my mason jar salad. Each of them has worked fine

Layer 6: Lettuce, nuts, and seeds.

In this last layer you want to put ingredients that would wilt or become to soft and soggy if exposed to dressing to soon. This definitely includes any type of lettuce or green. I also included nuts in this layer because I have found that the nuts at times lose their crunch if to close to the first layer. My favorite green to use are arugula, baby spinach, and field greens. But of course you can use whatever you prefer.

After you fill the mason jar with the different salad layers you just put the top on and close tight.

Also, there is really no rule with the amount of ingredients to put in each layer or that you must include all layers. The most important layer is layer 2 with the hearty veggies. You just want to make sure to have enough ingredients to keep the dressing and lettuce away from each other. If you are concerned with calories or the nutritional information in the mason jar salads you can always calculate that information ahead of time using My Fitness Pal.

Here are some of my favorite mason jar salad recipes.

Fresh Mozzarella and Spinach Mason Jar Salad

Tortellini and Artichoke Salad in a Jar

Chopped Black Bean and Corn

Buffalo Chicken Salad in a Jar Recipe

Greek Mason Jar Salad

Chopped Taco Mason Jar Salad

Chopped Cobb Salad in a Jar

Bell Peppers, Veggies, and Goat Cheese Mason Jar Salad Recipe

Protein Power Mason Jar Salad Recipe

Mason Jar Salad Recipes from other blogs.

Citrus Shrimp and Avocado Mason Jar Salad

Antipasto Mason Jar Salad

Shrimp Feta Cobb Mason Jar Salad

Glowing Green Mason Jar Salad

Spring Pea with Romaine, Radish, and Feta with Buttermilk Ranch

Zucchini Pasta Salad with Avocado Spinach Dressing

Quinoa Salad in A Jar (4 recipes)

I love mason jar salad recipe and I hope you found the information in this tutorial helpful so you can also start to enjoy them as much as I do.