Chopped Salad. Mason Jar-style

We've been trying different pizza joints around the area, and several of them have a "chopped salad", which I'm loving! So I decided to reimagine that salad in a mason jar.
Lunches for the whole week, prepped and packed all at once.

Here's the beautifully-layered finished product.

I prepped all of my ingredients ahead of time, which makes assembly SO much easier and faster! For my chopped salad, I diced, chunked and chopped celery, chicken, red bell pepper, cucumbers, salami, mozzarella and iceberg lettuce.

Here's the order of layers in my chopped salad:

#1 - about 2 Tbs. of balsamic vinaigrette dressing into the bottom of my quart mason jar.

#2 - A small portion of chopped celery.

#3 - Diced red bell pepper.

#4 - Repeat with chopped onion.

#5 - I drained canned garbanzo beans, and added a few tablespoonfuls.

#6 - Cucumber chunks.

#7 - Baby spinach leaves.

#8 - Chopped iceberg lettuce.

#9 - Chunked, cooked chicken.

#10 - Chopped salami.

#11 - Mozzarella cubes.

#12 - Top with croutons.

However, if you include croutons in your mason jar salad and store it even for a short while, the croutons will get mushy, which defeats the point of croutons. Which is why I pack them in a snack baggie on the side, so that I can top each day's salad with crispy, crunchy, satisfying croutons. Yum.

Check back later in the week, and I'll give you my review of this salad.