Much-loved restaurant chicken salad
| • | Celebrating the onion |
By Elaine Magee
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Q. There's a rib place near our house that serves this wonderful salad with shredded chicken and all sorts of veggies like jicama, salad greens, corn, and black beans. There's something really tasty about the spicy chicken with the cool ranch dressing. It comes with crunchy tortilla strips too. How can I make a healthier version of this at home for my family?
A. I've seen this salad on different menus across the country ... sometimes it's called Southwest chicken salad or Tex-Mex salad or barbecue chicken salad. No matter what you call it, it's always delicious. We can definitely make this on the lighter side by using skinless boneless chicken breast blended with your favorite barbecue sauce — you dial in how spicy you want it to be. Serve this on a bed of dark green (high-nutrient) lettuce topped with a wonderful vegetable salsa made with jicama, green onions, tomato, corn and black beans. Then just drizzle light ranch dressing over the top and call it dinner!
This salad is most definitely a wonderful entree salad. It has almost all of the food groups in one bowl (meat, beans, dairy, vegetables).
BBQ CHICKEN SUPER SALAD
Add chicken and barbecue sauce to a medium bowl and stir to blend. (You can also add the corn to this mixture if you desire). Set mixture aside.
In medium bowl, toss together beans, cilantro, green onions, diced jicama, chopped tomato and corn (if you didn't add corn to the chicken mixture); set aside.
Divide salad greens into 4 individual salad bowls and top with a fourth of the chicken mixture. Spoon a fourth of the black bean salsa mixture over the top of each salad.
Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of light ranch dressing evenly over the top of each of the four salad servings. Garnish each salad with a sprinkling of homemade tortilla strips or about 1/2 ounce of multigrain tortilla chips.
To make tortilla strips, cut 2 corn tortillas in half and layer all the halves on top of each other and then cut the 4-layer half circle into 10 strips or columns going from one end of the half circle to the other. Begin heating a nonstick frying pan over high heat and coat the bottom with canola cooking spray. Lay half of the strips down in the pan and lightly brown for about 2 minutes. Coat the top of the strips lightly with canola cooking spray. Turn the strip over and brown the other side for about 2 minutes more. Remove the browned strip to a serving bowl and repeat the process with the remaining tortilla strips.
Makes 4 entree salads.
Elaine Magee is a registered dietitian. Her latest book is "Food Synergy." Learn more at www.recipedoctor.com.
