Every once in a while in a working woman’s life, one gets home late and there is little time to make elaborate meals for dinner. Likewise, as much as it is cheaper and more advisable to pack lunch and snacks to the office for lunch, there isn’t always time in the morning to come up with anything time consuming.
To counter this and to fulfil my healthy eating goals, I often find myself having some quick go to meals and snacks and one of my favourites is a chicken salad. This is something I find easy to whip up in the morning, pack and carry to work as a mid-morning snack. It is also something I can cobble up in a few minutes and have as dinner accompanied by something equally light. I mostly have it with oven potatoes.
The thing with salads is that there are no rules really. You can get adventurous as long as you don’t make such a mish mash of ingredients that you don’t even know where the flavour is at. However, there are a few staples that are a must have in all my salads and one of these is Olive Oil. Olive oil will always come in handy for salads, stir fries, marinating stuff, or even drizzling on finished foods like pasta, grilled fish or vegetables. Olive oil, especially extra virgin is packed full of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and ls loved by chefs the word over.
My favourite olive oil is Olivia, which is high quality, fairly priced and easily available in local supermarkets. “Olivia’s olives have been cold pressed and its oils mechanically extracted so that no heat is applied during the crushing, avoiding changes in the oil’s chemistry and thus retaining its natural taste” – Source.
Now here is how I go about my quick go to salad that is as healthy as it is colourful. This is a salad for two, or two potions for one.
Ingredients
- Half a red capsicum
- Half a yellow capsicum
- One Red onion
- One Carrot
- One Lemon
- One tomato
- One bunch of Lettuce
- Chilli or black pepper
- 2 tablespoons Olivia olive oil
- 4 upper chicken thighs
It is recommended that you use chicken breast but I really don’t like chicken breast and since I skin the chicken anyway, I don’t imagine I’m consuming so much additional fat that it should bother me.
Method
- Boil the chicken until fully cooked and set aside to cool. You can boil the chicken earlier and refrigerate.
- In the meantime wash all the other above raw ingredients and soak them for about 10 minutes in water and vinegar.
- Chop all the fresh ingredients and put them in a bowl.
- Split the cucumber into two lengthwise and scoop out the middle part with the seeds. Likewise with the tomato. I do this to avoid having a watery salad. Chop these too.
- By this time the chicken will have cooled. Remove the skins and shred the flesh into bite sized pieces.
- Mix everything in a bowl until well mixed.
- Sprinkle some lemon juice, salt to taste and olive oil. You can also sprinkle black pepper and a little honey if you want a bit of sweetness.
And in just a few minutes my mid morning snack is ready and packed. The salad not the oil :-D.
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