Eating healthy is a top priority of mine and I will go to great lengths to ensure that I am eating the foods my (as well as my family's) needs. It is my goal to eat as much produce as possible, but I must admit I am not a fan of chopping produce. Hence my obsession with salad jars and meal prepping. Anything to make my life simpler and as automated as possible is a win for me.
There was a time I was super big on 'once-a-month cooking', but that was when our family was half the size we currently are now. It's not exactly feasible to prepare a months worth of food for our size of family AND store all of our homegrown produce in our two deep freezers. Even though I can't meal prep all our food, I do try to do as much meal prepping as possible.
When it comes to making sure I'm eating my daily salads, I like to chop up all my produce and store them in canning jars (no preserving here, just storage). I then keep the jars in my fridge and pull from them throughout the week. Most of the produce will last 7-10 days, some will even last longer depending on the veggies/fruits moisture content.
Chopping all my salad ingredients in advance saves me so much time and makes me actually want to eat a salad. Let's face it when you're in the throws of the daily grind, stopping to prepare a salad just isn't something most folks want to do. Trust me I get it, I'm in the same boat. But, if everything is already prepared, I'm typically thrilled to quickly toss together a salad with my pre-chopped produce. Plus a nice salad gives me that little boost of energy I'm often in need of come midday.
Not only do my salad jars encourage me to eat a salad everyday, but it also insures my produce lasts as long as possible. There's nothing more annoying than heading to the fridge to make a salad only to find all your produce is inedible. With the salad jars, the produce lasts a considerably amount longer than if it is just loosely setting in the fridge or out on the counter.
I have seen where some folks make 'all-in-one' salad jars, but in my experience, combining all the produce into a single serve jar makes the salads go bad quicker. My whole intentions in pre-chopping my produce is to reduce the time it takes me to prepare a salad each day throughout the week, prolong the shelf-life of my produce, and encourage me to eat more fruits and veggies. If the salads go bad quickly, obviously that would be counterproductive, which is why I keep the produce chopped in separate jars. After all, it only takes a few minutes to assemble my salads from the assorted jars.
Another bonus of these nifty little salad jars is how they help to keep the fridge clean an organized. It may just be our family, but produce often takes over our fridge, lol.
Summer is nearly here and many folks are already picking fresh garden veggies ~ these salad jars come in quite handy during this time of year. I just love the sight of fresh fruits and veggies. So colorful and inviting and not to mention the amazing way they make me feel when I eat them. These salad jars have definitely been a blessing to our family's healthy lifestyle endeavors.
With Love & Hope,
Jennifer
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