Salacious salad

   

            Homemade salads can be kind of tricky. What do I put in? How can I make a salad that taste great but still has all the health benefits... while still making it easy enough to make on any day of the week for my family, my kids, my significant other, or just myself? One of the simplest recipes to making a salad, loaded with vegetables as well as protein, is to really get the protein to flavor the salad and to keep as much excess dressing off your salad. Excess salad dressing will make your salad wilt, become soggy, and loose that refreshing crunch that comes with eating a salad.

         I was really burnt out on salad that I either bought either prepared in a carton or from restaurants that just all tasted the same. So, I decided, why can’t I choose the flavor? I chose chicken because that is what I could find fresh at the grocery store and I chose lettuce because chicken is a lighter meat and lettuce is a lighter vegetable. The technique, marinate your chicken breast in your favorite type of salad dressing and sauté. How easy is that! I marinated one chicken breast in Caesar dressing, sautéed the chicken to just tender (about 7 minutes per side), cracked some black pepper and crumbled some feta cheese over a bed of iceberg lettuce and helped myself to a chicken Caesar salad that was out of this world.

       The Key to this concept is that there are so many different flavors and palate profiles available for adequate prices that it’s almost impossible to get bored with a quick salad. Pick your Flavor and Pick your Vegetable and have fun with it. I know I did. 

Ingredients for: chicken Caesar salad.

1 lb chicken breast trimmed of fat

3 tbs Caesar dressing (or your own favorite dressing for your favorite type of salad)

1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled.

1/2 head iceberg or red leaf lettuce

1/8 tsp crushed black pepper

In a Ziploc container, combine chicken breast and dressing. Let marinate for 45 min to 1 hour. Crumble Feta cheese, and chop iceberg lettuce to size. In a medium low saucepan, sauté marinated chicken breast (with leftover dressing from Ziploc) for about 7 minutes on each side... adjust depending on the thickness of the breast. Once chicken is done cut chicken into slices. Place over a bed of lettuce with crumbled feta cheese and freshly cracked black pepper and... Enjoy!