Garden Harvest Chicken and Strawberry Salad
Take your salad game to the next level!
At this time of year with the abundance of fruits and vegetables being harvested locally, this salad is a must. One thing you’ll learn about me is that my salads are never just a plain pile of greens, and this loaded salad is no different. Honey-flavoured chicken, charred zucchini, fresh strawberries, and more with a delicate mint vinaigrette all over fresh green-leaf lettuce is a perfect meal on any summer day!
Some Notes on the Ingredients:
Chicken thighs - I always use boneless, skinless for easier preparation.
*Zucchini - When preparing zucchini in this way, it can get mushy and too watery. To combat this, I take the seeds out, leaving the zucchini still a bit crunchy when finished cooking. If you look in the picture you can see that there are no seeds. If you would like a more step-by-step tutorial on how to do this seamlessly, leave a comment and I can do that! (I took a knife skills class and am wayyy too cocky with chef’s knives now).
Queso fresco cheese - Any type of fresh cheese like halloumi, bocconcini, fresh mozzarella, etc. would also work in this!
Red chili flakes - If you want to turn this honey-flavoured chicken into hot-honey, add some hot sauce to the marinade in addition to the red chili flakes. The red chili flakes alone do not make the chicken super spicy.
Fresh mint - Another skill I learned in my knife skills class! If you place all of the leaves on top of each other in a pile, roll it tightly and then slice it into little ribbons, it looks much prettier!
Will it Meal Prep?
Last year I would make loaded salads like this one as meal prep to last 5 days every single week. There are 2 different tricks I learned to store my salads:
Store all of the ingredients grouped separately in the fridge. For this recipe, I would store all of the fresh ingredients (strawberries, lettuce and cheese) in separate containers lined with paper towel. Since the zucchini and corn are already cooked, they can be stored together. The chicken and dressing also shoudl be stored separately. The day of, I would just assemble all of the ingredients and eat!
You can also pack the salads already assembled! To make sure that the lettuce doesn’t wilt (because that is the worst thing ever), pour the dressing on the bottom of the container, topped with the chicken, strawberries, zucchini, corn, cheese and then lettuce on top, in that order. When you are ready to eat it, just shake and it’s done!
Both of these methods work very well, it just depends on your preferences. I found that I didn’t have space or enough containers to store 5 different salads in the fridge, so grouping the ingredients and storing them separate worked best for me. However, when you are packing lunch for work or school, having them already prepared and ready to go is convenient.
Thank you so much for reading and let me know if you try this recipe! See you next week,
Emma
zucchini with no seeds tutorial please 🤩
Love the cheese choice in this recipe