Cobb Salad Jar

The layering order that keeps a mason jar salad crisp until noon, and the dressing and bacon labels worth reading before you build it.

Makes

2 lunches

Hands on

20 min

Start to finish

20 min

Keeps

4 days in the fridge, packed full with the lid shut

• 2 tablespoonsvinaigretteThe main label read on this dish. Creamy dressings thicken with modified food starch that is sometimes wheat, and some vinegars are malt.
• 1/2 cupcherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cupcucumber, diced
• 2hard boiled eggs, quartered
• 3 slicesbacon, cooked crisp and crumbledPlain cured pork is usually nothing but pork, salt and cure. Maple and flavored bacon sometimes carries malt.
• 1 cupcooked chicken, diced
• 1/4 cupblue cheese, crumbled
• 1/2avocado, dicedGoes in the morning it is eaten, not the night before.
• 2 cupsromaine, chopped and dried well

1. Dry the romaine completely, in a spinner or pressed between two towels. Wet greens go limp on their own, dressing or no dressing.
2. Pour the vinaigrette into the bottom of a wide mouth quart jar.
3. Add the tomatoes and cucumber on top of it. Hard vegetables sit in dressing for days without softening, and they form the wall that keeps everything above them dry.
4. Add the chicken and the egg on top of that wall.
5. Add the bacon and blue cheese above the protein, where nothing wet reaches them.
6. Pack the romaine in last, right to the rim, and press it down. Air is what lets the layers slide into each other in a backpack.
7. Screw the lid on and store the jar standing upright.
8. Add the avocado in the morning, and shake the jar at the table rather than before.

1. Use a wide mouth jar with a one piece screw lid. A fork will not get past a narrow shoulder, and no child is tipping a jar into a bowl in a loud cafeteria. Glass looks better and breaks, so for a younger kid use a plastic one, and have them open and close it at home once before it goes to school.
2. The jar rides upright and wedged. Stand it in the middle of the bag with the ice pack against one side and a rolled napkin on the other so it cannot lie down. On its side the dressing runs up into the lettuce.
3. Send a full sized dinner fork, or an empty bowl to tip it into. A short fork cannot reach the bottom of a quart jar, and a kid who cannot reach the chicken eats the lettuce and brings the rest home.
4. Anything crunchy travels in its own small bag and goes in at the table. Inside the jar, a crouton or a tortilla chip is soft within an hour.

• The lettuce is slimy where it meets the layer below it. Something wet was packed directly under the greens, or the jar rode on its side and the dressing ran up.
• Everything has slid down into the dressing and the top third of the jar is air. It was not filled to the rim. Pack it full, even if that means more lettuce than anyone eats.
• The dressing sits in a lump at the bottom and will not shake loose. Olive oil sets solid in the fridge. Take the jar out five minutes before the bag gets packed.
• It leaked into the backpack. A two piece canning lid with a separate ring works loose as it gets knocked around. Use a one piece screw lid.

The dressing is the line to read. Bottled creamy dressings thicken with modified food starch, which is sometimes wheat, and a Caesar dressing brings Worcestershire sauce with it, worth checking because the US Lea and Perrins bottle is made with distilled white vinegar while the UK bottle uses malt vinegar from barley. Bacon is the second read: plain cured pork is usually pork, salt and cure, but maple and flavored versions sometimes carry malt. Blue cheese comes up a lot, and the old warning about the mold being grown on bread is out of date, though a bag of pre crumbled cheese carries an anti caking coating and the bag will name it. Tomatoes, cucumber, egg, avocado and romaine have nothing to check.