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Omg!! Made this salad for Saturday night date night dinner (along with turkey burgers) and it was a hit! 🙂 I’m the lesser than cook in the relationship so I was so pleased that this first time recipe was well liked by both of us. Thank You! 🙂
Will be using for lunches this week too:)
Let’s just start there, okay?
Because THERE is a very good place to start. It involves:
- Quinoa
- Cucumber
- Tomato
- Sun dried peppers
- Feta cheese
- Grilled shrimp
- Curlycue greens
- And a bucket of lemon dill dressing.
That would be enough, wouldn’t it? (I just ate it for lunch and I can assure you that it is and was more than enough.)
BUT.
I like it when things are a little more fun, a little more convenient, a little more real-life-able. Which is why this post is actually called Summer Salad Jars.
As in, let’s put this salad right on up in a jar.
Do you know what’s beautiful about this? The jar thing?
A) Jars. They look pretty in your fridge, and they SUPER CONVENIENT. It’s lunch in literally two shakes: shake the jar out, and toss it all up.
B) The tomatoes and the dressing sit in the bottom of the jar together and actually get BETTER and JUICIER and MORE FLAVOR LOADED the longer they sit in the fridge. The quinoa, too – it can handle that little bit of moisture from the dressing! Think of that lemony, garlicky, dill-punch of flavor just hanging out in there, giving your quinoa the royal treatment. How about a YES MA’AM on that one.
I haven’t been a huge supporter of jar salads in the past because I was skeptical that a lettuce salad, sitting a jar with a bunch of stuff for four days, would really be a good thing to eat.
But this is not a lettuce salad. That’s why I’m into it. It has the extra-delicious texture of a deli-style salad (you know, chicken salad, potato salad, that kind of thing) and all of its ingredients are sturdy enough to handle the weekly fridge sit.
And should you find yourself lacking for dinner, throw a few shrimp on the grill and pop em on top of your salad, with a few delicate curlycue greens in there for Instagram reasons.
Riiiight?! Are we not so hot with this right now?
Okay, easy meal prep. This week. Quinoa, veg, lemon dill dressing. Very healthy, very goals-y.
You got this! Please report back.
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Summer Quinoa Salad Jars with Lemon Dill Dressing
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings (16 ounce jars) 1x
Description
Summer Quinoa Salads with Lemon Dill Dressing! Hello shrimp, quinoa, tomato, cucumber, feta – my favorite healthy meal prep!
Ingredients
Lemon Dill Dressing
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- fresh lemon juice (to taste)
- a handful of fresh dill (to taste)
- a handful of fresh parsley (optional)
Summer Salad Jars
- 2 cups quinoa (or other pasta, quinoa, couscous, etc.)
- 2 pints of grape tomatoes
- 2 large cucumbers
- 1–2 small jars of sun dried tomatoes or peppers (I used DeLallo brand)
- 1 cup feta cheese
Instructions
- Dressing: Blend all dressing ingredients together until smooth.
- Grains: Cook quinoa according to package directions. Set aside to cool.
- Build Your Beautiful Jars: In each jar, layer a little bit of dressing, tomatoes, quinoa, cucumbers, sun dried peppers, and feta. Store sealed jars in the fridge up to 4 days!
- Serve: When you’re ready to serve, empty the jar into a bowl. Stir to combine. Voila!
Equipment
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Buy Now → Notes
I love dill, and I never measure it exactly. For those who do want to measure, I would guess my “handful” is equal to a loose 1/4 cup! Same for the parsley. This is also delicious made with whole wheat orzo or other cooked pasta! I like to add some finishing touches, too – extra salt and pepper, more lemon juice, fresh greens, and maybe some sunflower seeds for crunch! Yummy! You can totally add some cooked chickpeas, lentils, a piece of grilled chicken, fish, or shrimp added to the salad after it’s all mixed (as pictured). Personally I would wait to add the chicken/shrimp until just serving so the salad jars stay fresher for longer!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Lunch
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: jar salads, meal prep salads, quinoa salad
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our best healthy summer salads page. Check it out!
Somehow the foto and the recipe are different. There are no shrimps…
This an amazing idea for the summer quinoa salad jars. Im rating it 5 stars.
I’ve made this salad 5 times already and will be making it every week here on out! Absolutely LOVE! Introduced my boyfriend and mother to it too and they both asked for the recipe and have made it a couple times themselves now. We are all obsessed — thank you so much for this!!
I’ve made this salad 5 times already and will be making it every week here on out! Absolutely LOVE! Introduced my boyfriend and mother to it too and they both asked for the recipe and have made it a couple times themselves now. We are all obsessed — thank you so much for this!
Just tried this for a picnic yesterday and it was AWESOME!!
Will be making this FOREVER now.
Definitely MORE than a pinch of YUM. thank you!
Delicious! But I would like to know what ingredients you can recommend for keto? I love this salad recipe what can I take away or can you please do jar keto salads?? Is so convenient for me. I work 15 hours every day ( hospital) and I love all your salads recipes 😋 but what about jars keto salads 🥗 🤔
Hi, Carla! We’d probably recommend omitting some of the higher carb things (like quinoa and sun-dried tomatoes) in this salad depending on your carb limit.
I wanted to leave a small comment to support you and wish you a good continuation. I wish you luck with all of your blogging efforts.
Sharing summer quinoa salad jars is quite attractive and good for your health. Thank you so much.
I love this salad in a jar as it is not only delicious it is also so so pretty.
I loved this recipe! I like quinoa but haven’t been able to find recipes I actually like. I did cut the amount of tomatoes in half and it was perfect. My boyfriend doesn’t like dill but he found that this recipe was not overpowering. I ate the whole batch it was so good!
Glad you and your boyfriend enjoyed these salad jars, Jaclyn! 🙂
So good!! I made a bunch last night and am eating one today! I added goat cheese and sundried tomatoes and that was too much to fit in a pint ball jar so I’d suggest using larger jars!
Is the garlic in the dressing raw?
My mom and I made these salads today for lunches this week… it took us almost 2 1/2 hrs, but we had a ball. We ,currently live in Germany where there is no air conditioner, and it was a high of 95 degrees. The fan cord got dragged through olive oil and our metic measurements were a bit off. We laughed about hard it was to eat “healthy” as my 4 month old screamed for attention and the other 3 kids ran around our legs…. the salads turned out amazing. Thank you so much…. it was so worth it.
Chello Lindsay,
Had to double back and take a quick look at some food real quick “visually cheating,” before heading off to the gym. Stopping in real quick to wish you a great week and keep doing what you’re doing. Love, love, love your food blogs! (smile) 🙂
What I would love to know is : where did you find that Pottery bowl?
Lindsay, you are a joyful person and I’m grateful that you love to cook because you’re kind of like my personal chef, only I get to make the actual food. I guess you’re my personal recipe creator really, but I thotoughly enjoy your joie de vivre. Thank you! I’m going to go try this right now!
I made this to bring for lunch and it came out great, thank you Lindsay! Please post more recipes like this one.
I love this recipe and the fact that the dressing doesn’t have to be stored separately! It’s so nice to find a meal prep recipe that requires ZERO work at mealtime. I was thinking you should add an”meal prep” filter to your recipes page?
I’m not much of a lemon person, so do you have any recommendations for a dressing that would be good with this?
If I use two big english cucumbers will that be too much cucumber?
We’d think it should be just fine! Even if it’s a little more, not a big deal. 🙂 This recipe is pretty forgiving!
this recipe looks great! saw this on your Insta stories. Just wondering – how big are the jars you use for meal prep?
We used the pint size!
Omg!! Made this salad for Saturday night date night dinner (along with turkey burgers) and it was a hit! 🙂 I’m the lesser than cook in the relationship so I was so pleased that this first time recipe was well liked by both of us. Thank You! 🙂
Will be using for lunches this week too:)
Thank you for another great recipe!!!!
Very good! I like it
Sounds so yum!
May I ask where these pretty bowls are from?
E || OH LA LATKES
Back in the 1980’s, my grandmother who’s now deceased used to can homemade pickles in a mason jar. Then from time to time, I assume she would ferment other foods in a jar. Canning is a great way to stay laser focused not only with eating the right healthy foods, but also consume food in rightful portions. This way, eating portion-controlled food out of a jar or otherwise will be friendly on your metabolism to digest.
I could use something like Quinoa salad jar food right about now. It’s good for men especially because Quinona naturally raises Testosterone. I did 20 minutes of treadmill cardio today and restarted my 2018 weight loss transformation. Looking forward to previewing more blogs so i can get some creative ideas how to put a healthy meal together. Thanks for this post Lindsay. 🙂