Fancy Spring-Time Chicken Salad

This is not your average salad! When my husband made this the other day, I was awed by how beautiful it was and full of color. I was even more delighted to find out that it is crunchy, sweet, savory, and satisfying. This salad combines the best of juicy chicken, blue cheese, nuts, tomatoes, and greens (with a few surprises!). This is a perfect meal for lunch or dinner. You will definitely be full when you are finished eating this, and your stomach will be happy!

This salad can be made for one or several people; if you are preparing it for more than just yourself, add more of everything to the recipe.

Chicken salad mixture:

• Baked or pan-cooked pasture-raised chicken (with skin on) pieces of your choice
• Homemade mayonnaise – use the amount preferred – some like more, some less
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• A few shakes dill weed

Cook chicken with coconut oil and salt and pepper (either oven or pan-cook). When cooked, set aside to cool for a few minutes in a bowl or on a plate. When sufficiently cooled, dice up into small pieces. Place diced chicken in bowl and mix together with mayo, salt, pepper, and dill. Set aside (you can put this in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat with greens and vegetables).

Then prepare the following:

• Fresh greens – good ideas are romaine, collard, chard, or mustard greens, escarole, spinach, radicchio, arugula, green, or red leaf lettuces. If you have a heads of lettuce or greens, chop them up. Otherwise, spring mixes can be used the way they come.
• Sliced tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
• Sliced cucumbers
• Chopped scallions
• Raw nuts – almonds, cashews, walnuts (or a combination of those)
• Dried fruit – raisins, dates, and goji berries
• Blue cheese crumbles – we use Rogue Creamery raw blue cheese – to die for!
• Homemade salad dressing – we use olive oil and a bit of cold-pressed grapeseed oil, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper (note, oil to vinegar is 2 to 1 ratio and 90 percent red wine, 10 percent balsamic). Put all salad dressing ingredients in a bottle and shake well. You can make more dressing than needed for recipe and use for later as we do, to avoid having to prepare dressing for each meal. When you have used salad dressing, place in the refrigerator.

Dice up vegetables into small pieces. Cut up chunks of the blue cheese. Arrange greens on a plate or medium-sized to large bowl. Cover with chicken salad mixture, blue cheese crumbles, scallions, tomatoes, and sprinkle dried fruit and nuts on top. Pour desired amount of dressing onto salad. If you prefer dressing under chicken, pour after laying out your greens.

This post is part of Hartke is Online! Healthy Recipes/Natural Cures and Cheeseslave’s Real Food Wednesdays Carnivals. Please check out the other great recipes featured there.