{"id":203035,"date":"2025-04-24T16:28:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T16:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/recipes\/category-a-b\/budget-food\/crunchy-chicken-spinach-apple-and-carrot-salad-with-homemade-dressing\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T16:28:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T16:28:28","slug":"crunchy-chicken-spinach-apple-and-carrot-salad-with-homemade-dressing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=203035","title":{"rendered":"Crunchy Chicken, Spinach, Apple and Carrot Salad with Homemade Dressing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Real talk: it\u2019s hard for me to get excited about a salad\u2026 until I tasted this one.<\/p>\n
Is it revolutionary? No. I don\u2019t try to reinvent the wheel here. The only thing I aim to do is make lunch enjoyable, more enjoyable than something you\u2019d buy at your favorite takeout spot. This salad recipe fits that bill perfectly.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s crunchy (hence the name), flavorful and most importantly, filling!<\/p>\n
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The core elements of this salad are very basic ingredients:<\/h2>\n
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Carrots<\/li>\n
Chicken<\/li>\n
Spinach<\/li>\n
Apple<\/li>\n
Feta<\/li>\n
Pepitas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Of course, you can customize this as much as you want! Here are some ideas.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Swap carrots for raw zoodles or beet noodles!<\/p>\n
You can switch out the chicken for chickpeas (that\u2019s how our vegan version is written), grilled shrimp or canned tuna.<\/p>\n
Not into spinach? Use kale, arugula, or another green mix instead.<\/p>\n
Swap the apple for pear, sliced grapes or strawberries (or leave fruit out).<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t want to use feta? You can skip cheese entirely or use gorgonzola, blue cheese crumbles or goat cheese.<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t find\/use pepitas? Sunflower seeds, walnuts, sliced almonds and chopped cashews would all work.<\/p>\n
You have the opportunity to really make this salad your own, so do it! That being said, the recipe as written is so good that I can\u2019t wait to make it again and I hope you try it.<\/p>\n
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Let\u2019s talk about the dressing.<\/h2>\n
Clearly, I\u2019m late to the mason jar salad party. Better late than never, right? Anyway, the reason why these jars are so awesome to me is that you don\u2019t have to pack the dressing separately.<\/p>\n
The dressing sits at the bottom of the jar, not touching other ingredients that could get soggy (more on arranging a mason jar salad below).<\/p>\n
Here, we\u2019re using a basic mustard, lemon and brown sugar dressing. It\u2019s tangy, sweet an light \u2014 a perfect match for this crunchy salad.<\/p>\n
Of course, you can use whatever dressing you like and don\u2019t have to make your own! Add about 2 tablespoons to the bottom of your jars and you\u2019re good to go.<\/p>\n
How to arrange a mason jar salad:<\/h2>\n
Note that these salads fit in a 32 oz jar.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start from the bottom!<\/p>\n
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Add the dressing. Putting it at the bottom of the jar keeps it away from the greens so they don\u2019t get soggy.<\/li>\n
Add \u201chard\u201d vegetables. In this case, carrots would be our hard veggie because they won\u2019t get soggy from the dressing.<\/li>\n
Add the protein, which is chicken in this case.<\/li>\n
Add the greens. Now, you can really pack them in there because of your strong foundation of hard veggies an protein.<\/li>\n
Add soft veggies and fruits. This would be where cucumbers and tomatoes go if we were using them. In this case, it\u2019s apples.<\/li>\n
Add the toppings. Here we have feta cheese and pepitas!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The trick is keeping the jar upright until you eat it to avoid dressing going where it shouldn\u2019t go.<\/p>\n
Before eating the salad, you can give the jar a good shake to toss everything in the dressing, then dump it onto your plate and enjoy! So easy.<\/p>\n
What if you don\u2019t have mason jars?<\/h2>\n
You absolutely can pack this into a normal meal prep container.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/workweeklunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/spinach-salad-toppings-closeup-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/workweeklunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/spinach-salad-in-jars-1024x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/workweeklunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/spinach-salad-closeup-1024x683.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/workweeklunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/spinach-salad-feature-320x321.jpg\")