This chicken chopped salad begins with a bed of leafy greens studded with chopped cucumbers, radishes, and red bell peppers that's topped with stripes of hard boiled eggs, sliced avocado, roasted chicken, crispy bacon, and sweet cherry tomatoes.
Chopped Salad with Roasted Chicken, Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Bacon, and Cherry Tomatoes
I adore a good chopped salad, which simply means all the ingredients are, well, chopped. Unlike a Niçoise salad in which all the different components are arranged in groups, chopped salads traditionally toss everything together.
This is great if you're only feeding yourself and know that you like each and every ingredient in your chopped salad.
But, family members don't always like all the same things. At least, mine don't. So, if I'm serving a big salad for dinner family-style, rather than letting everyone just build their own, I like to keep at least some of the ingredients separate. This allows people to pick and choose what they want on their plate.
This chicken chopped salad is a mix of the two styles
I tossed the greens with chopped cucumbers, red peppers, and radishes to create the salad's base. Then, I layered on groups of hard boiled eggs, sliced avocados, roasted chicken, bacon, and cherry tomatoes.
I like to serve the dressing on the side when making a big salad like this because if there are leftovers, I don't want them to get soggy. In fact, I generally make enough to ensure that there's enough leftover salad for my lunch the next day.
I also like to serve this chicken chopped salad with croutons - preferably homemade.
If you're making this as a part of Weekly Winter Meal Plan #4, you probably already made some croutons from the leftover bread you served alongside Roast Chicken. If not, I encourage you to make some. Homemade croutons are quick and simple to make, and can bake while you chopped the vegetables.
Weekly Meal Plans that include Chicken Chopped Salad:
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Chicken Chopped Salad
Ingredients
For the salad dressing:
- 2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar
- 2 tsp dijon mustard
- 2 tsp honey
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
For the salad:
- 1 lb. (16 oz) thick cut bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
- 8-10 cups Romain lettuce, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- 1 English cucumber, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
- 8-12 radishes, ends trimmed and sliced thin
- 4-6 perfect hard boiled eggs, sliced
- 2 avocados, peeled and sliced thin
- 2 cups roasted chicken, shredded
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes
- salt and pepper
Instructions
Make the Dressing:
Make the salad dressing:
- Whisk red or white wine vinegar, dijon, honey, salt, pepper until well combined in a medium sized bowl.
- Gradually pour in the olive oil in a thin, steady stream, whisking constantly to emulsify. Whisk until all the oil is incorporated into the dressing.
Make the salad:
- Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped bacon to the hot skillet and cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon is brown and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon from the pan to a paper towel lined plate and allow to drain.
- Toss the lettuce with the cucumber, red bell pepper, and radishes and pile it into a large serving dish. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.
- Top the lettuce with rows of sliced hard boiled eggs, avocados, shredded chicken, bacon, and cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle the vegetables and the eggs with a bit of salt and pepper.
- Serve with dressing and croutons on the side.
- Category: Salad
Maurizio Grazioli says
Very interesting to follow your evolution ... from Italy.
Thanks a lot
MG