Thai-Inspired Chopped Chicken Salad in Mason Jars

• Chicken Breasts
• Broccoli Florets
• Red Cabbage
• Mango
• Roasted Red Peppers
• Olive Oil
• Salt + Pepper
• Chili Paste
• Coconut Aminos
• Creamy Peanut Butter
• Rice Vinegar
• Lime Juice
• Ginger
• Salt and Pepper
• Lettuce
• 4 cups hearty lettuce

Substitutions

Chicken: Want to swap out this protein or make it vegetarian? Go for it!

Peanut Butter: You can substitute this with almond butter, cashew butter, or sunflower seed butter although the flavor will change somewhat.

Veggies: Swap in some other veggies if you don’t have the veggies called for on hand.

Chili Paste: This ingredient is a bit crucial in terms of the vibe of the recipe we have, but if you want to omit it, you can. We used Sambal Oelek, but you can use another type of chili paste or even Sriracha if you have that on hand.

Coconut Aminos: This is a soy-free soy sauce alternative. You can replace this with soy sauce if you want.

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Steps to Make It

There are just a few steps between you and this delicious salad. To make this recipe you need to:

1. Cook up the spicy broccoli and chicken.
2. Put together the dressing.
3. Prepare raw salad ingredients.
4. Assemble!

How to Make it for Meal Prep

We envision this salad as the perfect meal prep for make-ahead lunches (though you don’t need need to do this, obviously). So let’s talk a bit about what makes salad prep in mason jars awesome!

At first glance, you might be thinking it’s just some trendy way to serve a salad, but a salad in a mason jar is so much more. Because of the unique way of layering the salad vertically, it preserves the freshness of the salad for longer. This Thai Chopped Chicken Salad pasta about 5 days.

Next, you need to know how to layer your ingredients. You want to layer your ingredients in terms of their moisture content, hardiness and density (as in–how heavy they are!).

Layer in the wettest ingredients first. And then in ascending order move all the way up factoring in how hardy an ingredient is (such as how absorbent they are) and how heavy they are.

Here is how to layer this Thai Chopped Chicken Salad:

• Layer 1: Cabbage and Mango
• Layer 2: Dressing (the dressing goes on top of the cabbage and mango, to make a faux slaw)
• Layer 3: Chicken
• Layer 4: Spicy Broccoli
• Layer 5: Roasted Red Peppers
• Layer 6: Lettuce

How to Serve It

And now the fun part! There are two ways to serve this mason jar salad, and will probably depend on where you are when you are eating it. 

You eat the salad right from the jar if you want! Just shake up the salad to mix it up, grab a fork and enjoy. This works well for an on-the-go lunch!

Or, if you are at home, go ahead and pour the salad into a bowl. You likely won’t need to toss it, since the dressing is coming from the bottom.

If you like this salad recipe, check out these others:

• Mediterranean Turkey Salad
• Mason Jar Salads
• Easy BBQ Chicken Salad
• Chicken Fajita Salad