Easy and Quick Chicken Caesar Salad
Every single time I make a meal I always make extra so that I can bring it for lunch the following day. There are times, however, that I may make too much of something where I may need to use it for dinner one of the following days (I guess this isn't a bad problem to have though, especially if you are tired after work and want to try to minimise the amount of time spent preparing meals during the week). Baked chicken breasts is one of those items that I typically cook in batches. Why?
- It allows me to make use of the oven all in one shot (thus saving on some electricity and future cooking time)
- It's one of the healthier meat options of the various meats
- Chicken is so versatile that you can make so many different leftovers with it.
Coming back to point #3, here are a few different items you can make with chicken leftovers:
- Chicken Pad Thai
- Chicken Pot Pie - Just replace the turkey and ham in the recipe with chicken
- Chicken Pizza - Just add chicken as an additional ingredient on the pizza
- Chicken Stirfrys - Fry up vegetables and chicken, serve with some rice and away you go!
and now, this SUPER easy Chicken Caesar Recipe. Honestly, I don't think you can get any easier than this...
- 2 medium-sized Chicken breasts, cooked and sliced into strips
- Half Cup Caesar dressing
- 1 head Romaine Lettuce
- Cheese, parmesan or cheddar/mozzarella
- Bread, cut into small cubes
- Black pepper, optional
- Olive Oil
- If using left over chicken, warm up chicken in microwave for about 1 minute, or until warm. If making raw chicken, heat a pan over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of oil. Add chicken and cook until the insides are no longer pink.
- Heat a pan over medium-heat. Add bread and drizzle olive oil over top. Fry bread until sides of some of the bread turn a golden brown and these will form your croutons. (refer to photo at bottom of blog)
- Place lettuce into a bowl. Add chicken on top. Add in croutons. Add dressing, as well as some black pepper (though this is optional) and toss in the bowl until all lettuce is nicely coated. If you like extra creamy caesar salad, add additional dressing to fit your needs. Add cheese on top. Serve and enjoy!
And there you have it... two steps total for this meal! Of course, this meal can be modified by doing a couple things different:
- Making your own caesar dressing - I was not adventurous enough to make my own dressing, especially when it is so easy to purchase a bottle of caesar dressing from the store. If you do want to be adventurous though, follow this Food Network recipe. The key ingredients to make caesar dressing are mayonnaise, lemon juice, and garlic.
- Croutons - I made the croutons on my own, as it is incredibly easy! You can definitely make use of store-bought croutons, but if you have any spare bread rolls or any type of bread available in your home, I would highly recommend making them yourself. I've tried store-bought croutons before, but they typically are pretty hard when you bite into them. When you make them yourself, assuming you don't over heat them, they taste so much more fresh and delicious when you fry the bread yourself. You can fry it until a couple sides of the bread turn a golden brown in which case that is when you have the perfect texture crouton that will not be too hard to bite into, but still have a nice warm taste, along with the olive oil, when you add it to your salad. I highly recommend trying to make them on your own as it is SO easy and only takes bread and oil!
Why have the same old leftovers when you can make so many different options with your leftovers like I have? You won't get sick of the ingredient and allows you to impress any family members too when you are able to whip up a pretty quick but tasty meal after coming home from a long day at work.