Asian Chicken Salad

One thing I’m going to try to work on a little bit more in my kitchen is making main dish salads. My recipe section is seriously lacking some good salad recipes. Now, you really don’t need a recipe to make a salad. Salads can be thrown together deliciousness. I love pulling odds and ends out my fridge and making a yummy filling salad. But sometimes a salad recipe can inspire you to think about adding a few more salads and that’s just the inspiration I need right now!

I love homemade dressings and one of the joys about salad recipes is that they usually come with a great dressing. I have a few bottles of my favorite dressings sitting in the fridge. Who doesn’t? But there’s something delightful about a freshly made salad dressing. One of the things I love about the dressing in this recipe is that all of the ingredients are hanging out in my pantry (even the ginger).  No extra ingredients on the shopping list!

This recipe is wonderfully simple. I love that the recipe calls for an already cooked chicken! How much easier could it get? Of course, if you have some extra chicken hanging out in the fridge you could easily use that instead. I didn’t use the greens that were suggested, I just bought a head of red romaine and it was great. I decided to half the recipe just to make sure that I would like the dressing. I could easily see myself doubling the recipe in the future – it’s that good! The salad comes together in just a few short minutes and was light and flavorful but also very filling.

Enjoy!

¼ c. rice vinegar
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. sesame oil
2 tsp. fresh ginger, grated
2 tsp. honey
6 c. romaine salad greens
6 c. spring mix salad greens
Rotisserie chicken, skin removed, deboned and chopped
2 medium carrots, shredded
2 c. snow peas, trimmed
30 oz.  mandarin oranges, drained
½ c. sliced almonds, toasted

Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and honey together in a small jar with a lid. Shake ingredients until combined. In an extra-large bowl, toss together salad greens, chicken, carrots, snow peas and mandarin oranges. Add dressing and gently toss to coat. Sprinkle with almonds.

Adapted from http://www.hy-vee.com/seasons/recipe.aspx?r=7635