Quick & Easy Meal Prep: Mason Jar Greek Salads (AIP)

Make healthy meal prep super easy with these AIP Mason Jar Greek Salads. Perfect for grab-and-go, nutrient dense lunches all week!

AIP Mason Jar Greek Salads are super easy meal prep!

Mason jar salads are some of the easiest, most nutrient-dense grab-and-go lunches there are! I love prepping them on a Sunday to take for lunch all week. They’re super quick to make (5-10 minutes, tops!) and they pack a whole ton of veggies into one meal, so I don’t have to think too hard about trying to squeeze in six servings of vegetables per day. Plus, I know that one mason jar packed full is exactly enough food to fill me up and keep me full for 4+ hours.

These AIP Mason Jar Greek Salads are one of my go-to mason jar salads I make because they’re super simple and easy to make, but still amazingly delicious and filling. You just need 5 ingredients and about 5-10 minutes, and four of your lunches are covered for the week. Easier than takeout!

this recipe!

Ingredients for Mason Jar Greek Salads

To make these AIP Greek Salads, first gather your ingredients. Luckily, most of them are pantry staples! And there’s only minimal chopping and prepping! There’s even less prep if you buy pre-chopped romaine.

For the salads:

• 10 oz canned tuna (two 5 oz cans)
• 15 oz can artichoke hearts, drained
• 3 oz jarred kalamata olives (about 1/2 cup), drained
• 1 cucumber, quartered and sliced
• 1 romaine heart, chopped

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

How to make Mason Jar Greek Salads

To prepare the salads, open your cans of tuna and mix thoroughly in a small bowl (my canned tuna did not require draining. If you buy a different brand, you may need to drain before mixing). Open and drain your artichoke hearts and kalamata olives. Chop your cucumber and romaine.

Arrange ingredients in four mason jars, bottom to top: tuna, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, cucumber slices, and chopped romaine. Arranging the heartier ingredients at the bottom, and the more delicate veggies at the top, keeps the whole salad fresher longer. Put lids on your mason jars and store in the fridge for up to 5 days.

After preparing the mason jars, add the dressing ingredients to a small mason jar or salad dressing container and give it a good shake. Then store in the fridge for later. If I’m super low on time, I’ll skip making the dressing and just use a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar and a dash of sea salt, and it’s still super delicious.

When you’re ready to eat, just remove a mason jar from the fridge and dump into a large salad bowl. Top with a drizzle of dressing and eat up! Alternatively, just pour some dressing straight into the mason jar, close it up, give it a good shake to disperse the dressing, and eat it straight out of the mason jar!

A few notes

Head’s up: the dressing will start to solidify in the fridge because of the oil content. Just set the jar out on the counter ahead of time, or run the closed jar under warm water to warm the oil up before using, and give it a good shake, and you’ll be good to go!

If you’d like to add the dressing to the mason jar salads ahead of time, put it on the bottom of the jar, before all the other ingredients. I prefer to add the dressing later, though, as my salads tend to last longer without the added moisture from the dressing. The dressing also requires some time to warm up and de-solidify (because of the oil content), and I don’t like my salads sitting on the counter while I wait for the dressing to warm up.

A note about canned tuna

As you may be aware, consuming too much seafood can lead to mercury poisoning. Tuna generally contain more mercury than many other forms of seafood, because tuna are large fish that feed on smaller fish, which are already contaminated with various levels of mercury. And because mercury is not easily excreted, it builds up in fish that are higher on the food chain, resulting in high levels of mercury in larger, predatory fish, such as tuna.

Just as mercury can build up in large fish, it can also build up in humans, so the FDA recommends no more than 6-12 oz of tuna per week, for the average adult (see the FDA website for more info on mercury in seafood).

But tuna is packed with essential omega-3 fatty acids, protein and nutrients! The benefits of consuming fish and other forms of seafood can outweigh the risks of mercury exposure. You just have to do a little bit of research about which kinds of seafood are high in mercury and limit your consumption.

That’s why I get my canned tuna from Safe Catch Seafood. They test their tuna to a mercury limit ten times stricter than the FDA! And they test every single tuna for mercury! They also only source sustainably-caught tuna that is non-GMO verified. If you’re looking for a safe way to reap the benefits of eating seafood, I highly recommend Safe Catch.

I am not affiliated with Safe Catch. I just love their seafood and trust that I’m getting safe, low-mercury tuna for my delicious AIP-friendly tuna salads. The Amazon affiliate links in this post, however, are affiliate links. They don’t affect your price, but I do earn a small commission for qualifying purchases.

Other recipes to try

Looking for more grab-and-go lunches to try? You should def check out these recipes from the archives:

Quick No-Mayo Greek Tuna Salad (AIP, Paleo, W30)

Nourishing Buddha Bowl (AIP, Paleo, Whole30)

Sheet Pan AIP Winter Meal Prep Bowls

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