Burrito Bowl Jar Salad

I wanted to share a recent recipe we made this past weekend. Mason jar salad's are all the hype right now, as they should be; they are amazing! With a little time and effort put forth on Sundays, Kyle and I have at least two lunches accounted for during the week. Saves so much time later on as we can just grab a jar from the fridge and go. And since we are following the 21 day fix clean eating plan, I like to mark the top of my jar lids with a little sticker to remind us the container count.

I originally found this recipe on Strictly Delicious, but I needed to make some modifications and additions to make it how I wanted and to figure out a correct fix container count.



The fix count ends up being 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 green, 1/2 blue, and 1 spoon.

I don't know about you but we haven't been to chipotle in quite a while after all the E.Coli scares and people getting sick. Which is sad because it was one of our favorite places to eat. This doesn't excatly taste like a Chipotle burrito bowl, but it's pretty darn good and healthy for you!

Makes 5 mason jar salads

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa (you'll have left overs, just set aside and eat another day, 1/2 cup will count as a yellow)
3 tablespoons lime juice
3/4 cup chopped cilantro, divided
1 large sweet potato (I used two small ones, but had left overs - these also count as a yellow)
1 1/2 Tbsp coconut oil
5 Tbsp plain lowfat greek yogurt
3/4 cup shredded cheese (we used cheddar)
3 3/4 cups chopped cooked chicken breast
1 cup chopped tomatoes
4 cups chopped lettuce (we used a spring mix blend with kale added)

Instructions
Make quinoa and sweet potatoes a head of time; these need to cool.

• In small pot on stove-top cook quinoa and 2 cups water, bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Once cooled add lime juice and about 1/4-1/2 cup cilantro. 
• Cut up sweet potatoes into small chunks (I love using my vidalia chopper for this!). Head the coconut oil in skillet, add potatoes once hot and brown on all sides. Once brown, reduce heat and cover. Let cook until sweet potatoes are soft, set aside to cool.  

Now comes the fun part! Assembling the jar salads!


Layer salads in this order; this is for one jar, repeat with remaining four jars. I liked to use matching jars I have that were originally jarred peaches from Costco.

• 1 Tablespoon of Greek yogurt (if you haven't made the switch from sour cream to Greek yogurt, DO IT! Tastes just the same and there are so many more uses for Greek yogurt. We haven't bought sour cream in months and don't plan to.)
• 2 Tablespoons of your cooked/cooled sweet potatoes
• 4 Tablespoons of the prepared quinoa
• 2 1/2 Tablespoons shredded cheese (or half a blue container per jar)
• 3/4 cup cooked, chopped chicken (or full red container per jar - I like to use pre-cooked chicken from Costco, see below)
• 2 Tablespoons chopped tomatoes
• 3/4-1 cup lettuce to top off the jar
• Sprinkle some of the remaining cilantro on top before screwing on the lid. 

Place in fridge, til ready to eat. If it's just you, you have lunch for the week!!! Kyle and I share these so it gets about half our lunches planned for the week. You could try and eat it out of the jar, but I prefer to dump it on a plate so I can mix it all together better.

The chicken I like to use is packaged grilled chicken, with little to no additives; also from Costco. I used to love the packaged rotisserie chicken there, but it is rather salty so I opted for this cleaner version: