Ideal at lunchtime, salad jars fill our office space. In line with the One pot pasta trend, jar salad is the best way to combine fast, easy and balanced cooking. The trend of shaker salad comes from the United States, where one often eats at his computer at lunch time.

What is the salad in a jar ?

There is no more explicit name! The salad in a glass jar replaces the salad often not very good and much too expensive found in a bakery or cafeteria, in a plastic container. You do it yourself at home the day before or in the morning, slip it into your purse and eat it at the lunch break. The glass jar keeps the fresh salad ingredients longer, conveniently transported without risk of leakage and controls the size of the proportions. In short, healthier, more economical and more ecological, the salad in jar is all good ! And at lunch time, just shake his jar to mix his salad. The salad shaker gesture reminds us of the salad sold a few years ago at Mc Donald's.

The good reflexes to make your salad in jars

No, it's not enough to stack salad, tomatoes, onions and olives to make a salad in a jar. As easy as its preparation, it can very well "miss" salad. That's why, arranging the ingredients in a specific order is essential. The vinaigrette always settles in the bottom of the jar, followed by ingredients that appreciate marinating in the sauce like onions. And if you do not expect to eat your salad in a jar the same day, you should separate in the upper part of the jar (with a little parchment paper), the ingredients that may soften like croutons or nuts. The fresh fruits are added at the last moment in the jar, which must be at room temperature before shaking it.

The steps of an ideal jar salad

- In the bottom of the jar, it is the vinaigrette which composes the first layer: 1 to 2 tablespoons in a small jar and 2 to 4 in a large one.
- The hard and crunchy vegetables come next. Onion, tomato, carrot, fennel ... they will soften in the vinaigrette. Pulses such as lentils or chickpeas can also be used here.
- Heavier cereals like rice or wheat are then integrated into the salad in jars. Make sure they do not crush the lighter ingredients.
- If you intend to eat the salad in a jar within 24 hours of its preparation, you can add tuna, chicken or cheese.
- Then comes the turn of tender fruits and vegetables . Squash, sweet potato, avocado, strawberry ... they are also incorporated the same day.
- Light cereals such as semolina and quinoa are available from above.
- Then logically, lettuce leaves, arugula or spinach.
- Finally, with the parchment paper, you separate the ingredients of the salad which tend to soak: parmesan shavings and croutons for example.

And to fill up on ideas recipes of salads in jars, the book " Salads in jar the Bible" by Anna Helm Baxter is available to Marabout editions (€ 10.90).