Greek chicken salad

THIS DINNER!

I think I may be eating this for the next week straight.  Or at least every day that Kyle’s out of town from now on.  It’s so good!  And so easy!

It all came about when I was brainstorming what to make for dinner.  Usually when Kyle’s gone I try to make something with ingreds he doesn’t like (ie zucchini, cucumber, dill, pickled stuff).  But what I was really in the mood for was Italian dressing.  I know that sounds weird, but when you have a craving you have a craving.

Rather than buy dressing with questionable additives and preservatives, I decided to try to make my own.

Home-made Italian Dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp agave
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

Shake well so the salt and agave dissolve and the spices and herbs mix.  Use liberally.  🙂

For the salad, I wanted something similar to a chopped salad, but also a chicken salad.

I had leftover chicken from when I cooked the whole bird in the instant pot over the weekend, so that was perfect.  I also had cherry tomatoes aplenty in the yard.  So then I added cucumber, marinated artichokes, and feta, and called it a day.

One note: the marinated artichokes you choose matters!  Get good ones.  The long stem roman artichokes I got were AMAZING.  So plump with massive hearts…which is the whole point of eating them anyway (nobody wants leaves!).  The long stemmed ones have more of the yummy part.

I love how the salty flavors of the feta and artichokes are balanced out by the fresh cucumber and tomatoes.  And then the whole thing is instantly made into a meal thanks to the chicken.  It’s perfection.  If you are into red onions, they’d probably be good in this as well, but since it was for me and the kids I left it off.  Your call.

Greek Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts (~1 lb), cooked and diced
• 3 Persian cucumbers, sliced
• 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 8-10 oz marinated artichokes, chopped
• 1/2 cup feta, crumbled
• Italian dressing (see recipe above)

Directions:

Bake or poach the chicken if you don’t have any cooked chicken on hand.

Slice the cucumbers (Persian ones are better than English so that you don’t have to de-seed them), halve the tomatoes, chop the artichokes, and then toss everything together with the chicken and Italian dressing.

Crumble feta on top and serve.

See my note on feta from yesterday.

I could eat this allllll day long.

Sometimes it’s nice to have things like this to look forward to when Kyle’s traveling because otherwise it’s just sad that he’s gone.  But if I know I get to eat this and binge Queer Eye and Bravo after the kids are in bed then at least there’s a glimmer of joy for me to look forward to all day.  😉