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The Mason Jar Salad
Bringing your own salad to lunch was always feasible, but it just wasn't the same as the zillion-ingredient, freshly chopped variety that you can get at a salad bar. Enter: the mason jar. That ancient kitchen tool you use for decorative flour storage is the answer to your gigantic-salad prayers.
Basic Spinach Mason Jar Salad
Lemon-Shallot Vinaigrette (2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 1 diced shallot, 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil)
1/4 cup chopped carrots
1/4 cup chopped beets (roasted or canned)
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 cup wild rice
1/2 avocado
2 cups fresh baby spinach
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The Frozen Soup
There is virtually no meal in this world that is easier or cheaper to make (healthfully) than a good soup. It doesn't matter if you do grocery shopping at the deli — you can make a huge pot of healthy, yummy soup for around the cost of a slice of pizza. Better yet, you probably already have most ingredients in your house already. That mysterious can of Great Northern Beans rattling around in your cabinet? It has a purpose now. Half an onion left over from guacamole night? That's your base. Semi-aged baby carrots you purchased in attempt to stop eating chips before bed every night, but then just ended up eating the chips anyway? You know what to do.
Tomato-Turkey Spinach Soup
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced or pressed
2 28 oz cans whole peeled tomatoes
1 turkey breast, cooked and shredded (also works great with Thanksgiving leftovers!)
4 cups vegetable or turkey broth
1 10 oz container frozen spinach, thawed (or 1 bag fresh)
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste
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The Quinoa Bowl
The quinoa bowl has long been a staple of our take-out repertoire, which is why, when we discovered how cheap and easy it is to DIY, we felt like dummies. Poor dummies. Quinoa is, as we've said before, the greatest non-grain in the grain section. It's versatile enough to take on virtually all flavors, it's inexpensive, and it's really, really, ridiculously good for you.
Spicy Mexican Quinoa Bowl
1 cup quinoa, cooked
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed
1/2 cup canned corn, rinsed
1 tomato
1/4 avocado
1 lime
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tbsp olive oil for cooking
Salt to taste (garlic salt if you're feeling frisky)