I really enjoy a fresh, colorful salad made of good quality vegetables and tasty additions like blue cheese and dried cranberries to give it the salty and sweet contrast. Making your own salad dressing is almost as easy as opening a bottle from the store. It tastes so much better because it is fresh and without preservatives we can’t pronounce. Marinating the chicken, gives a bland salad much more flavor and you can always use leftover grilled chicken.
I am sometimes disappointed at the selection of salads I find on menus when eating out that I often just prefer making my own so I can control the ingredients. Have you ever eaten a salad in a restaurant where you only had two or three pieces of bland chicken or over seasoned chicken or perhaps you weren’t even sure it was chicken. I always ask for my dressing on the side because they smother the salad with so much dressing sometimes, it is all I can taste. Plus, I try to save some calories by only drizzling as little as possible on the salad because I don’t want to ruin the benefits of eating a somewhat healthy salad by ingesting 500 calories in dressing alone. Feel free to omit the onions or cucumbers in this salad. Hope you enjoy it!
See other healthier recipes: Oven Roasted Vegetables , Easy Fresh Garden Vegetable Bow Tie Pasta and Easy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Rosemary and Ginger
Chicken Blue Cheese Cranberry Salad
Ingredients
- Marinade:
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Juice of half a lemon
- ¼ tsp of Kosher salt
- 2 tbls extra virgin olive oil
- Salad:
- 6 Romaine lettuce leaves, washed, patted dry and cut into smaller pieces
- 10 cucumber slices
- 10 grape tomatoes
- ½ of a medium red onion, thinly sliced (optional)
- ½ cup of good quality blue cheese crumbles
- ¼ cup of dried cranberries
- Salad dressing:
- 1 tsp Balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh cracked pepper to taste
Instructions
- Trim fat and any cartilage from chicken breasts. Slice chicken lengthwise and put in a quart size zippered plastic bag.
- Add the lemon juice, salt, and only two tablespoons of the olive oil to the chicken. Close the bag and marinate for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prep vegetables and preheat outdoor grill closer to the time you’ll be ready to use it.
- When the vegetables are prepped, and the grill is hot, grill the chicken for a few minutes on each side until no pink juice is visible when poked with a fork. Discard the marinade. Once chicken is removed from the grill, let it stand for 5 minutes before cutting.
- Combine and stir olive oil, vinegar, and pepper to make dressing.
- Slice chicken side-to-side or in bite size pieces and place on top of the salad. Pour dressing on top.
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