Being able to make healthy choices is so much easier when it’s convenient. One of the biggest struggles some people have is oftentimes, unhealthy snacks are easy to grab when you’re busy or on the go. By storing pre-cut vegetables in mason jars and creating a salad basket, you can have fresh foods available at all times. When I do this, I find that me and my entire family are more likely to grab them for snacks since it’s just as easy as grabbing something from the pantry. Having pre-cut veggies for salad toppings also makes creating a lunch or dinner salad quick and easy since everything is already washed, cut, and ready to eat!
My salad basket , holds 8 quart-sized glass jars. It can also fit wide mouth pint-and-half jars, or wide-mouth pint jars, depending on what size you want. I keep radishes, carrots, celery, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and bell peppers in my salad basket. As with all other produce, I wash all the salad toppings in a large bowl as soon as I get home from the grocery store with 10 cups of water and 1/4 cup of 5% distilled white vinegar for precisely 2 minutes. This kills the mold spores and is a best practice to start doing when you get home from grocery shopping. After washing, I let everything dry completely on a clean towel, at room temperature, for a couple of hours.
Taking these few extra steps will level up your food storage and allow items to last week’s instead of just a few days.
I will walk you through the instructions for my salad basket items in this post, but if you find that you would benefit from printed instructions, check out my eBook, I Bought It, Now What?. It includes a downloadable PDF which you can save to your computer or print to have at your fingertips whenever you need it.
Salad Toppings I Keep In My Fridge
Cherry Tomatoes
We use cherry tomatoes for our salads. I take them out of their plastic containers and store them in quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jars in the fridge. They will last for about a month if stored this way and washed using the process mentioned above.
If you have garden tomatoes, those can be kept whole, on the counter, at room temperature.
Radishes
Radishes require an added step. Before placing them in the vinegar bath, cut off the leafy green parts. I usually only cut up a few at a time and leave the rest whole. They will last for a week in the fridge if they are cut and weeks if they are left whole in glass jars.
Cucumbers
Personally, I prefer English cucumbers, which always come wrapped in plastic. Immediately after getting home from the grocery store, I take them out of the plastic wrapping and wash them like everything else. I store whole cucumbers in the crisper drawer and cocktail cucumbers in glass Pyrex containers with an airtight lid. When left whole and stored in the crisper drawer, cucumbers will last for two weeks. When we are ready to eat them, I leave the skin on, cut them up, and place them in glass mason jars. After cutting, they should last another 7-10 days with the skin left on.
Carrots and Celery
Carrots and celery are fairly easy. I buy whole carrots, then peel and slice them because they last longer this way. Baby carrots are soaked in chlorine, so they turn gray and don’t last as long. Carrots and celery are washed like everything else.
I suggest saving the leafy bits of your celery stalks and carrot peelings to make a delicious homemade turkey stock, like the one I make here.
I normally store carrots and celery in a flat glass container with an airtight lid, but a jar will also work. If I don’t have time to cut them right away, I put them in the crisper drawer after they are washed. Just be sure that all the excess water has dried off before storing. The video below shows how to revive your carrots when they start to get a little old and sad.
Bell Peppers
Bell Peppers are another produce item I keep ready to go as well. Check out how I prep and store them here. I normally leave some peppers whole and cut one to keep in a jar for the week. We like them cut into strips because they are easy for snacking and dipping. Dicing them for salads is easy to do from when they are already cut into strips.
Greens
Lettuce is easy to store in the fridge and have it stay fresh for weeks if you wash and store it properly. Believe it or not, you can also keep spinach for weeks – YES, WEEKS, in the fridge as well. Spinach always seems to be a troublesome green to keep for any length of time in the fridge, but it is possible, I promise. I talk about washing and storing both lettuce and spinach here. I like to store my lettuce in this airtight container. A salad spinner is very helpful in the drying process.
You can use the same technique on any type of leafy greens. I do not buy bagged salad mixes anymore for any type of storage. They don’t have as long of a shelf life as a head of romaine, and iceberg lettuce has almost no nutritional value.
Eggs
We enjoy hard-boiled eggs on our salads, so we make hard-boiled eggs once a week. I store them in this acrylic egg carton. My husband has always been the hard-boiled egg maker in our family, so here he is doing his thing.
Mixing It Up With Non-Veggie Salad Toppings
There are so many options for salad toppings you can have at the ready for when you need a quick meal or snack, so feel free to customize this list. Some other toppings we like to add are: chicken breast, seasonal fruit like pomegranates in the winter, or strawberries in the spring and summer.
I also put pieces of chopped up bacon I pre-cooked, hemp hearts, pumpkin seeds, shredded cheese, and homemade gluten-free croutons. I talk about how I make those here. Next time you’re at the grocery store, grab some fun salad toppings to slowly build your collection.
I love having this salad basket in our fridge because, let’s face it, convenience is a factor that comes into play when we make a choice of what to eat. Washing the items using my instructions will allow you to have no more food waste with fresh produce on hand at all times. Having fresh food is the best way to encourage you and your family to eat a rainbow every day.
This post may contain affiliate links. This means if you purchase through my links, I receive a small commission at no cost to you. For more information, please read my Disclaimer
Leave a Comment