Easy Chicken Bok Choy Mason Jar Salads! Light, Gluten Free, and Paleo friendly Asian-inspired mason jar salads that are great for lunch or dinners on the go! Perfect use of leftover vegetables and grilled or stir fried chicken as well. Portable Healthy lunches just got easy.Â
Well friends, it’s official. Tupperware is so 2005., I’m kidding. But Mason jar salads are definitely making their way up (again) on the food trends. And I will be the first to admit, I haven’t jumped on that mason jar salad train until now. Scratch that, I made ONE old “how to make” post with mason jar salad in 2014, but haven’t done another since.
You see, we’ve been pretty luck these past 8 years. When my husband was full time pro athlete, he trained from home, and I worked (mostly) from home. I really did not need to pack lunches for him and myself. Fast forward to this year and it’s a WHOLE NEW BALL GAME. We’ve been slammed with a dose of reality (but still counting our small victories). Meaning, he’s retired, working on jobs until we find the right path, and is no longer training 4 -5 hrs a day. Which also means lighter TO GO meals and salads are now welcomed. Haha! .
Now you can see why we’ve jumped on the mason jar salad bandwagon. It’s a nutritious, delicious, and a portable lunch or meal that you can make any way and any day (yay, I rhymed). Or you can create customized mason jar salads to keep in the fridge for when you want to enjoy it at home.
Yea, I’m diggin it! Plus it helps that I have a plethora of mason jars from kombucha brewing and my pickle obsession. Please tell me you can relate?
Anyway, despite my mason jar hoarding, I really wanted to make a few mason jar salads that put some of our melissa’s produce to use. We received a ton of bok choy in our last shipment and I just knew it would perfect for a stir fry or some type of salad recipe. Those are MY FAV!
Easy Chicken Bok Choy Mason Jar Salads
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 2 1x
Description
Easy Chicken Bok Choy Mason Jar Salads {Gluten Free, Paleo}
Ingredients
- 6 – 8 oz organic chicken breast sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp tamari or gluten free soy sauce
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 to 2 tablespoon sesame seed
- 1 tsp chili pepper flakes
- 1 small portabella mushroom or oriental mushroom sliced (makes about 1 cup)
- 1 small baby bok choy bunch
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1–2 cups chopped cabbage
- sea salt
- black pepper
- ½ tbsp slivered almonds
- You will need at least 2 16oz mason jars
Instructions
- Toss chicken slices in ½ tablespoon sesame oil, ½ tablespoon tamari, honey, chili flakes, and 1 tablespoon sesame seed. Grill or place on skillet/wok until no longer pink. Remove and set aside in small bowl.
- Place your other ½ tablespoon sesame oil, tamari, and mushrooms in a bowl and toss to coat. Grill or cook mushrooms for just a few minutes until slightly cooked. Remove and keep any extra oil/tamari you have left in pan or marinated bowl.
- Slice your bok choy in half and place on a paper towel after you have washed them. Place in microwave to lightly steam for 30 seconds to a minute. Just to soften.
- Next layer your jars.
- Place cabbage at the bottom, then mushrooms, then chicken, then wrap ½ a sliced bok choy bunch around each jar, and last add your carrots. Pour any leftover oil from cooking in the jars if desired.
- Sprinkle top of each jar with slivered almonds and the rest of your sesame seeds. Seal up and store for later.
- Once ready to each, dump everything out into bowl and add sea salt/pepper. Feel free to add more chili pepper flakes too. Add sesame or a gluten free asian dressing if desired.
- Don’t have time to cook chicken? see notes for ideas!
Notes
If you have ANY leftover chicken breast, feel free to use that here instead. And same goes with stir fry veggies. They are great with the steamed bok choy.
Serving size: 1 jar Calories: 305 Fat: 18 Saturated fat: 3 Carbohydrates: 13 Sugar: 6 Sodium: 600 Fiber: 3 Protein: 22
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 10 min
Nutrition
- Serving Size: i jar
- Calories: 305
- Sugar: 6 g
- Sodium: 600 g
- Fat: 18 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 13 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 22g
You can use leftover ingredients from a chicken stir fry recipe or simply create a layered chicken salad with bok choy yourself. Either way works and either way it is delish! Sesame chicken and stir fry veggies with a tangy gluten free Asian dressing makes my taste buds happy. Place that in a super cute mason jar and now I feel not only happy, but super cool. Haha, my Corny Cotter Confession.
Alright friends, I’ve confessed my mason salad jar love. Now tell me, are you a mason jar salad fan? Have you been using them for years? Am I so behind the times? LOL, don’t answer that last question.
Since I don’t have any more fun Mason Jar Salads to share, I thought I’d share some of my favorites from friends!
Tropical Sriracha Chicken Mason Jar Salads
Watermelon, Arugula, and Feta Mason Jar Salads
I just discovered your site. Very excited to try many of these recipes! Never made a mason jar salad before but always freeze my homemade chicken broth in mason jars so I’m glad to have another use for them! Anyway, quick question–how long can you leave these in the fridge? Trying to do some advance prep to make my weeks easier but I just ambitiously bought all these veggies and am afraid they’ll go bad before I get a chance to use them. Thanks for all your fabulous looking recipes!
Thank you Catherine! You will love these! It’s an older recipe but easy to prep . These should be good without dressing for 3 days or so. Have you see my bbq salmon meal prep bowls?
Make that 5 to 7 days if you buy veggies fresh that day for prep
Bok Choy is so delicious and chock full of nutrients! This is right up my fuddhist philosophy. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thank you for commenting! Let me know if you try it!
Nice one.. I never tried this recipe before. Sounds like sunday will be something new at home of this beautiful recipe?
let me know if you do!
As per said, i tried. sesame oil is unavailable here at our market now,so, i tried it with coconut oil,Looks delicious.Thanks for the recipe dear. 🙂
glad to hear!
???credits all yours ????
Sounds heavy and quite different salad??????i never heard about this recipe before??Keep sharing more awesome recipes??
I love mason jars. I think the glass is a much healthier alternative to the plastic. Love these salads. They are portable, easy and lovely to look at.
I have so many mason jars and yet still haven’t made a mason jar salad. that is changing for sure!! Thanks for the inspiration and love these flavors! Making this with shrimp for sure!
These look AMAZING! Who said packed lunches have to be boring?!
I love your unique spin on mason jar salads. Only you can make it look so beautiful.
I am pretty new to the mason jar salad trend, but I am totally hooked! I love the looks of your salad, so many gorgeous layers! And thanks for including my watermelon salad 🙂
Love yours! Can’t wait for watermelon season!
I’ve never made mason jar salads before but they look so cool that I have to try it!
I bet you could make some kind of fabulous dessert and put in a mason jar. How fun would that be? If you make one, invite me over! haha
Okay, don’t judge me…I’ve never put a salad into a mason jar :-O
I know, I know!!!
This looks so so good. Love bok choy!
Woah woah woah lady this looks too good to be legal!!! NOM! I only have those small baby mason jars (BOO) but I think despite my lame collection, I’m still going to make this salad and eat it in a bowl, just pretend it’s a trendy mason jar salad. Pinning!
I’ve never made a mason jar salad. They are so pretty and I’ve meant to but like you said, working from home, I just throw everything into a bowl and don’t make things ahead. But this looks yummy!
Looks delicious! I love salads in jars! Yumm!!
They are so fun too!
Despite the fact that Vegas think I’m nuts, I totally hoard jars. And there is often some sort of home brew concoction in the in our fridge. Mwhahaha!
Must try this. Mushrooms are anti-inflammatory. 😉
Yum! This salad looks delish with so many tasty flavors. I like making mason jar salads for the Hubs because he hates to cook. He told me the other day that he didn’t like them in the mason jar because they were too hard to eat. I chuckled and told him he needed to add what was in the jar to a bowl and eat it! 🙂
Oh I love it!! Haha yes it can be hard to eat out of jar. He gets credit for trying
You know what’s sad? Ive never made a Mason jar salad…but I have a ton! I use them to store grains and seeds 😛 O and granola!
I’m loving the new Snapware containers I got though! They are amazing!! College eating ease and so durable!
girl we can have a mason jar salad party and use all our grains too! LOL!
It is hipster Tupperware 😀 I need some new food prep ideas: this weekend I’m going to work on that (Ales is working Sunday PM). This looks like it might make its way into the rotation!
Oh yum! What a perfect lunch as the weather gets warmer! I haven’t made a mason jar salad in awhile either (since I work from home), but I think that needs to change. I never seem to have enough time to pull together a proper meal mid-day anyway. Something like this that’s waiting for me would be awesome!
i saw yours on interest!! i want that bacon ones! YUM!
So much love for bok choy! Mason jar salads would make my life easier, really need to jump on that bandwagon with you!
let’s do it! a week of mason jars! haha
I love my mason jars. Food is a lot like fashion. It has its own trends!
haha i wonder what’s next!
You know I always have good intentions with making/prepping mason jar salads… but I think I need some HUGE jars because I like me some big salads. So first things first, must get bigger jars if I want to be on the cool mason jar salad trend. Second, I actually need to start meal prepping such salads…
But this looks soooo good. I am thinking once Drew and I get settled into a new routine, I will have to make these a priority!
Haha yes! Big jars for the win!!!! And I feel ya on the new routine. It can be hard